


it's like that bullshit emo song says:

by manboobs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Alternating, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, the Hale pack is alive and well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-01-29 10:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12628938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manboobs/pseuds/manboobs
Summary: Stiles and Cora are best bros for life. The Hale pack is strong and prospering. Stuff happens, IDK.





	1. first day of my life

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fic I'm writing for Nano this month when I need to take a break from Monsters.  
> It's a challenge for me because I'm basically writing it, barely rereading and posting it here directly, as opposed to Monsters where the editing is painstakingly long. 
> 
> Expect semi-regular updates, bad writing, typos and a lot of nonsense.
> 
> Thank you all Nanobes for making this experience totally worth it.
> 
> Comments and kudos are as always immensely appreciated but not mandatory. You Sterek shippers are what God is made of. Heart-eyes all around.

“I mean, it’s bullshit that you get this huge locker room to yourself to change and I have to take a shower with, like, fifteen sweaty, disgusting, gross dudes. Can’t you just”, Stiles knocks her shoulder with his glove, “talk to Finstock about it again? He worships the ground you walk on.”

“Quit it, Stilinski”, Cora grunts as she restrings the net of her Lacrosse stick.

Stiles slumps further on the bench next to her. Cora’s on Game Prep Mode. He knows from experience she’s impervious (well, impervious-er than usual) to nagging in this state. But Coach does worship her, and their shared thirst for blood on a Lacrosse field is why he made her captain over that douche Whittemore. Whose naked butt and self-satisfied smirk he has to see in the locker room day in, day out.

Done with her stick, Cora finally spares Stiles a glance. “You’ve been whining about this for years now. It’s never gonna happen. Besides,” she goes on over Stiles rolling his eyes dramatically, “I don’t have the room all to myself. I have to share with Kira.” Stiles is about to tease her on her budding crush on the kitsune when Cora delivers a deadly blow: “And you’d miss the glorious sight of Whittemore’s naked ass anyway.” She smirks as Stiles claps both hands over his eyes, a plaintive, drawn-out “noooooo” escaping his throat.

Cora punches his shoulder playfully, giving a last look at the rapidly filling up bleachers. Lacrosse truly is Beacon Hills High’s king sport. People come in droves to watch the Cyclones kick whatever team’s ass on a regular basis. Their team is, if Stiles says so himself, unbeatable. Cora is vicious, unrelenting and precise on the field, and her team responds to her lead like a well-oiled machine, almost like a pack of their own making. With Whittemore always trying to show he’s the best and Stiles’ constantly at Cora’s back, they haven’t lost a game in… ever.

He, personally, has never had much of a taste for the game, but Cora ~~blackmailed~~ talked him into trying out, and she spent so much time tackling him to the ground in the Hale backyard that he eventually got good, just for survival.

Stiles feels the pre-game jitters spread through his body, from his chest to the tips of his fingers, breathes against it. He lifts his head, looks at the usual spot on the bleachers where his dad, Cora’s parents Talia and David, and Allison are gathered. Allison is holding a #11 glittery sign, smiling at Scott who’s waving at her from the bench. Scott hasn’t been able to make first string yet because of his asthma, but they’re working on it.

His dad breaks out of his conversation with David to smile and wave at him, and Stiles waves back goofily. He can’t help it, he loves that his dad is proud of him just because he’s good at a stupid sport. He doesn’t always feel like the best of sons, what with all the time he spends at the Hale house and the few years he spent lying about werewolves. He’s glad he’s got this to share with his father.

The whistle blows. Coach starts making frantic, borderline demented gestures in their direction. Before they start running toward the center of the field, Stiles looks at Cora one last time. He finds her frowning, looking at the ground. He jostles her a little bit to get her attention.

“Everything okay?” Stiles asks.

Cora shakes her head, looks right at him with that piercing Hale stare. A corner of her mouth ticks up, and she gives him a thumbs up. Stiles smiles in return.

“Okay then”, he says. “Let’s go.”

::

Derek comes home from his morning run to the smell of burnt coffee, syrup, store-bought waffles and teenage sweat. Sure enough, when he rounds the corner to the kitchen, he’s greeted by the sight of his baby sister and her leech, looking all sleep-rumpled and feasting on a hastily assembled breakfast.

“Hey, buttface”, Cora mumbles, eyes barely lifting from the giant mug of coffee she’s holding with both hands. Derek ignores her, going over to the coffee machine to pour himself a cup. As he comes back to the counter, he notices both of them watching him silently with twin expressions of curiosity. Stiles is holding onto a piece of soggy waffle, munching on it with his mouth half-open. That kid is the worst.

Ever since Cora befriended Stiles at the playground when she was five and Cora was in love with him because “Mom, Ftile’ knowf how to count to firty! Like grown-upf!” (She had a speech impediment. She doesn’t like being reminded of it. It’s often very hurtful to the person doing the reminding), something in Stiles Stilinski has always bugged Derek. Something about his smell that’s sweet and earthy and only grows stronger with age and the way his eyes are too big for his face and how his voice is way too deep for his gangly body. Ugh.

And he’s always over at their house, eating their food and watching their TV, taking up their space and breathing their air. Can’t the kid stay home at least some of the time? Derek knows he gets along with his dad just fine. The Sheriff is pretty cool, even Derek likes him. And he adores Cora, too. Can’t he take them both off the Hales’ hands from time to time? He regards both of them with a blank face, sipping at his black coffee.

“You weren’t at the game last night”, Cora says. She looks bored, but there’s an accusatory tone to her voice.

Derek shrugs a shoulder noncommittally. It’s none of the disaster twins’ business what he does with his time. They keep looking at him and eating breakfast. Stiles’ hair is standing up in weird places. He’s wearing Cora’s track team t-shirt, faded “Hale” letters sprawled on his chest, the span of his shoulders stretching out the material. God. Can’t the kid wear his own clothes? Does he have to go destroying other people’s? He’s infuriating. Derek furrows his brow.

Stiles’ mouth ticks up as he swallows the last of his waffle. “You never miss Cora’s games. Or meets. Or races. You always sit in the bleachers and hide behind your mom”, he says.

Derek glares at him. “You can’t prove that.”

“Can too”, Cora counters over her half empty mug. “Dad sends me selfies every time. You’re always sulking in the background.” Before Derek can lunge towards Cora’s phone, she adds: “and I have them saved in a secure location.”

Stiles chuckles lazily, squeezing a disgusting amount of syrup on another waffle. It’s really gross, but also kind of uplifting, like maybe if Stiles keeps it up he’ll die of diabetes soon and Derek will finally be free.

Cora snaps her fingers in his face to get him to focus on her. Rude. “So, where were you?”

Derek swirls the coffee in his cup. “None of your business.”

Stiles snorts. He turns to Cora, uses a gritty, tone-deaf voice to mimic Derek’s. “None of you business”, he tells her, eyebrows pulled down low over his eyes. It sounds or looks nothing like Derek. He scowls harder. The disaster twins explode into guffaws. Derek turns on his heel, heads upstairs for a shower. Stupid Stilinski kid.

::

Derek drowns his rapidly flaring guilt in the shower. He hasn’t hidden things from his family in a long time. It’s historically not a good idea for him to keep things from his pack. And he hasn’t missed a game of Cora’s since she made Captain as a Sophomore. He felt vaguely nauseous the whole time, but this was the only time she had free of school, and Derek wasn’t about to bring her along to meet his family. He’s gotta make sure, first.

Jennifer had been great all evening. Beautiful and smart and just a little bit spazzy. Something in her had instantly called to Derek, that time she came by the gallery. Something below the surface that was vulnerable and searching. When she’d awkwardly asked him on a date he’d said yes without even thinking about it.

So he may be dating someone again. But this time he has to make sure it’s right. That he can trust her. That she’s… harmless. He can’t- there won’t be another Kate.

Even though nothing happened. Even though his mom and Chris Argent got there in time before she could drench the house in wolfsbane-infused gasoline. Even though she’s behind bars with her psycho father and their hunter henchmen, even though she will be rotting in prison for the rest of her pathetic, hate-filled life and the pack is safe and thriving and his alpha has told him again and again and again that he wasn’t his fault. Given the disaster of his love life, nobody can blame him for being careful.

The water turns cold. Figures. Cora probably used all of the hot water. Typical. He quickly rinses off, steps out of the shower. An off-key wailing wafts over to him from downstairs. His ears prickle at it. He makes out Stilinski’s awful rendition of some emo song from that band with the guy with the black hair and the top hat. That kid is the worst.


	2. miserable at best

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! No Derek POV here, and almost no Derek at all. This is all about Stiles freaking out and his epic bromance with Scott. 
> 
> I promise a lot of Derek POV in the next chapter, that I haven't even started writing yet. \o/

Stiles is sprawled on his belly on the floor next to Cora’s bed. Trigonometry homework. Fun.

Cora is lying on her bed completely ignoring her notes, playing Candy Crush on Stiles’ phone. She’s been twitchy all afternoon. It’s not her usual “I’ve got too much pent-up aggression I need to run or inflict pain on my unsuspecting best friend” kind of twitchy. Stiles has no idea what’s going on, but he’s too afraid to ask. She might bite his head off.

So. Trig. Fun. Hypotenuses. Fun fun fun. Yes. Stiles is concentrating. He’s concentrating. He’s-

Cora sighs, long, drawn-out and for the fifth time in a twenty minute period.

“Cora”, Stiles bites. She sighs.

He launches his pencil at her face. She plucks it out of thin air, sends it flying back. It hits him squarely in the forehead. Well. That’s gonna leave a bruise.

Suddenly she’s up and on him, sitting on his back with both legs either side of him. “Come on Stilinski. Let’s get out of here. Surprise Lacrosse training. Let’s go.”

Stiles oofs with her considerable weight on him. He tries to be the voice of reason, knowing full well it’s a lost cause. “Corrrrraaaa”, he whines, “we have Trig homework. Come on.”

She’s already at her bedroom door, hopping on one foot to put her running shoes on. “Let’s go Stilinski. Captain’s order.”

Well. Trig is clearly not going to happen with Cora this agitated. And he’s not totally averse to running around in the autumn leaves. He might even avoid getting violently slammed to the ground and get a few tackles in himself if Cora’s distracted. He scrambles off the squishy, comfy carpet and hunts for his own pair of sneakers as Cora bound down the stairs toward the backyard.

They manage to play for about twenty minutes, Stiles sweaty and disheveled, his body bruising all over from repeatedly underestimating Cora’s thirst for blood, when a deep howl rattles through the woods. Cora’s head perks up from where she’s making Stiles eat dirt. She’s off him and running toward the bone-chilling sound faster than Stiles’ eyes can follow.

He takes his time getting up from the pile of dead leaves Cora buried him in, checking his limbs for serious injury and carefully letting each of his joints pop. He’s got leaves and twigs stuck to his clothes and tangled in his hair, his skin damp from exertion and the cold fall air.

When he’s finally fully upright, he notices David stepping on the porch bundled in a grey scarf and coat, holding two steaming mugs. Stiles walks carefully toward him. David offers him one of the mugs wordlessly, smile affable but tight. Stiles inhales the inviting aroma of coffee (always strong and bitter when David makes it), but before he can ask what the howl was about, figures emerge from the shadow of the trees framing the Hale backyard, looking eerie and zombie-like in the rapidly waning sunlight.

A dark shape falls from above where Stiles and David are standing and lands into a low crouch, wolfed out. Derek. Dickhead. That dude will take any opportunity to show off his amah-zing werewolf powers and killer body. Nevermind that his whole family has the same powers and equally killer bods. Derek will magically lose his shirt, backflip over tables and jump over stairs any chance he gets. He might actually be afraid of stairs, with how often he avoids them. Now there’s a thought.

Derek slowly unfurls from the crouch he landed in when he literally _jumped from his second-story bedroom window_ and joins the group coming toward the house. Stiles mirrors David’s position, leaning on the bannister, as he watches the proceedings in the backyard.

Talia, eyes glowing red, is scent-marking Derek’s neck, framed by Cora on one side, and Scott and Boyd on the other. Wait a minute. What in the name of hell are Scott and Boyd doing here with Talia? As he looks on, Derek goes over to both boys and scent-marks them in turn, the same way Talia did to him. He notices they’re both limping slightly, Scott’s expression tight with pain, his hand constantly going to poke at his right side.

Stiles knows, from context and hundreds of books he read on werewolf lore in the Hale library, that this is a solemn occasion. He should keep silent, let the wolves do their wolfy thing, nevermind how bizarre and unprecedented, nevermind that his best friend is walking next to an alpha werewolf. He’s human. He can’t fully understand pack dynamics and their intricacies, the importance of ceremonial for wolves. But he can’t help it. His brain has possibly imploded and is leaking through his ears right now.

“What the holy fucking fuck is going on?” he yells.

::

They’re all gathered in the living room, sitting on the leather-soft, spacious couches or the floor. Scott and Boyd are bundled in blankets and sitting each side of Talia, who keeps a hand steadily brushing the nape of their neck. Cora is sitting halfway on Boyd’s lap, eyes flashing gold from time to time. The transition for bitten werewolves can be rough, even fatal, when they don’t have a pack to care for them.  

Stiles is sitting on a couch facing them, David at his side, his refilled coffee mug gripped tight in his fingers to keep them from shaking. He hasn’t been able to utter a word since Talia ushered him inside, Scott giving him sheepish looks from behind her.

“Stiles”, Talia addresses him, in full alpha voice. He’s not sure she can help it right now, so close to her newly-bitten betas. Are they even werewolves yet? What’s the time limit? Stiles doesn’t remember reading about the timeframe of transformation in one of the How to Werewolf books from the Hale library. “Stiles”, Talia repeats, voice laced with annoyance. He snaps out it.

“Yes”, he answers, looking directly into her red eyes. If he was a wolf, his eyes would be flashing at hers right now. But he’s not. He’s human like David, Talia’s husband. But unlike David, he’s nobody’s mate. He’s an extra piece that went and attached itself to the whole. He’s not pack. He takes a sip of his coffee, gulps loudly.

“I’m sure you have questions”, Talia says. From his position on the floor, Derek looks supremely bored, playing with a loose thread of carpet. His phone keeps lighting up with texts from Laura.

Stiles nods. And nods. And keeps nodding. Yes, he does have questions. A whole fleet of them, knocking around in his brain and making it impossible for him to focus on just one. Thankfully, Cora knows him well enough to speak up. “Mom, just. Tell him everything, okay?” she says from her position on top of Boyd.

Talia nods, glancing in Cora’s direction before focusing entirely on him, red eyes still glowing. “As you have most certainly understood, I gave Scott and Vernon the bite. We’ve been looking into expanding the pack for quite some time, finding good, strong betas for Laura to rely on when she’ll be alpha.” She looks at her children sitting close to her, at her husband facing her, hands at her newfound betas’ necks.

Stiles tries not to fidget. He forgets how different Talia is when she’s in Alpha Mode. Usually, she’s a lot like Cora and Laura. She’s the one who taught Stiles curses words that would make a demon blush. But when the red eyes are glowing, she’s like… the Ultimate Boss. It’s intimidating.

“Both Scott and Vernon asked for the bite quite some time ago. Both of them had different but equally good reasons for asking. We’ve discussed it with their families for a long time before taking the decision to include them in the pack, as betas. We’ve waited for the best time to do it, and their families have been brought into the fold of our little furry secret, like you and your dad were a long time ago.”

Stiles resists the urge to snort into his mug. He can’t believe Talia would bring that up. He wasn’t “brought into the fold”. He found out about werewolves because he woke up one night he was sleeping over at the Hales, and found Cora had shifted in her sleep. That was shortly after his mom had died, and he was prone to nightmares. He freaked out so much, he had his first panic attack that night. David was the one to coach him back to breathing normally. Talia and Stiles spent years fighting about telling his dad. Stiles didn’t want him to know, wanted to protect him from that secret. Talia disagreed, but was intent on changing Stiles’ mind instead of going over his head.

Until one full moon when Cora, naked and shifted, came traipsing through his house in the middle of the night looking for Stiles and snacks, and she found his dad working on a case at the dining room table. Words were exchanged. Cardiac rhythms were checked. Long explanations and hearts to hearts were had. A lasting friendship was established between the Stilinski and the Hale adults. Hence the fishing, and the Thanksgiving dinners, and the camping trips, and Stiles half living at the Hales. Anyway. That isn’t the point. The point is: Talia is full of it.

As it is, Talia keeps talking serenely. “Both boys were asked to keep the secret from… anyone who wasn’t direct family, for the time being”, she says, putting her finger directly on what’s bothering Stiles. “That’s why they didn’t tell you. In ten to twelve hours, they will be werewolves of the Hale pack. They’ll have weeks, months of training before they’re ready to share this secret with those they choose. As for now, we need to keep the circle of those who know as small as possible.”

She looks at him with that Hale intensity that is so impossible to resist. He looks back. “We trust you Stiles. We trust you to help our new betas as they experience the challenges of becoming a wolf.” It’s the most loaded “don’t be a shithead” order Stiles has ever been given. He figures it’s in his best interest to keep eye contact and nod decisively, so he does.

Talia nods in return, satisfied. As soon as he figures it is safe to do so, Stiles bolts.

::

He sulks. Oh yeah. So much sulking going on, it’s not even funny. He decidedly does not look in Cora’s direction the next Monday in first period when Scott’s seat next to him stays empty. He eats lunch at his usual table with Lydia, Allison, Cora and Kira. He runs suicides in practice, weathering Coach’s bad mood. He gets detention for not handing in his Trig homework on time. And through all of that, he gives Cora the coldest shoulder he’s ever given her, even through the Great Rift of ‘08 when they were both gunning for Lydia’s affections.

He’s not even mad at her, really. He gets why she didn’t tell him. If Talia forbade her to, there’s literally nothing she could have done about it. And he knows, he _knows_ , okay? That he’s being a baby, making this whole thing about him when their best friends are most likely going through a very difficult, disorienting time. He wishes he could be noble and selfless and let it go over his head. But he’s a little shit, always has been, and he can’t.

He can’t make the voices in his head shut up, no matter how much Adderall he takes. The voices telling him he doesn’t have a place here anymore. His two best friends are werewolves, and his best friend’s best friend is a werewolf, and he’s just… Stiles. Painfully human, spazzy, selfish Stiles. They’re in the same pack now, getting to experience the same things and bond on perceptions and feelings Stiles will never get to have. They don’t need him anymore.

So yeah. He’s sulking and moping and sulking even harder because Cora is making no move to even try and patch things up, and he hasn’t heard from Scott at all in four days. They haven’t been this long without talking since they met at baseball camp ten years ago.

He gets home from school and lets himself fall backward into his bed, intent on burying himself there and not resurfacing for a century or two. Or like, until his dad brings home take out. But when he makes contact with his pillow, it yelps and flails and comes alive. He jumps up and karate chops the air, letting out an almighty shriek. Right there in the center of his bed is Scott, good old floppy-haired Scott, rubbing his side and looking up at him with wide, if slightly amused eyes.

“Duuuude”, Stiles says, letting out all of the extra air in his lungs, “you scared the shit out of me.”

Scott lifts an eyebrow in a move he inherited from the Hales. It’s been four damn days and he’s already one of them. Great. “I noticed”, he says, eyeing Stiles’ arms, still raised in a facsimile of a karate pose. Stiles drops his arms and glares at him. Scott seems to remember he’s here for some kind of apology and looks sheepish, giving Stiles the infamous puppy dog eyes until he sits down next to Scott.

“Why are you here?” Stiles asks.

“I ran away”, Scott says, smiling crookedly at Stiles. Good old Scotty mac. Stiles can’t resist that little fucker. “I’m supposed to be home, acclimating myself to my new… senses in my house. You know, the smells, the colors, all of that.”

Stiles nods, because he does know. He’s read about three or four books about it. He’s an expert es lycanthropy. He practically wrote the book for werewolves who can’t werewolf good and want to learn how to do other stuff good too. He gives Scott a sidelong glance. “You disobeyed your alpha so early in the game? Man, you’re in trouble”, he sing-songs.

Scott’s smile widens. “Don’t I know it”, he says, nudging Stiles’ side with his elbow. When Stiles doesn’t shy away from the contact, Scott takes it as permission to pounce. He envelops Stiles in a crushing hug, and they bounce on the mattress, a lump of best-friendly limbs.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you”, Scott says, muffled in the crook of Stiles’ neck. Scott has always been kind of a handsy dude. Seeing as how Cora doesn’t have a care for intimacy or personal space, it’s not about to get better. Stiles runs his hand in Scott’s hair, brushing his fingers through his curls, nails gently scratching at his scalp. Scott emits a strange sound coming from deep within his chest, almost like a purr. Stiles, by a feat of inhuman strength, holds back his giggles.

“It’s okay bud. I get why you did it, I guess. And I’m sorry too, that I wasn’t… more understanding. Or there. Or that I didn’t check to see if you’d survived the transformation.” Goddam. Scott could have died from the bite and Stiles was too busy moping to check his best friend was alive. Nice one, Stilinski. “My bad”, he says, because he’s an asshole at heart. Scott barely lifts a shoulder in acknowledgment, still purring his little heart out.

“So I take it things went well?” Stiles asks.

Scott props himself over Stiles with one elbow. He smiles down at him, big and blinding and full of enthusiasm. Puppy-like. “Yeah, it’s going great! I mean, it is an adjustment” he adds, cocking his head to the side. “Talia’s rules are pretty strict. And Derek’s always, like, hovering over her shoulder, glowering, so that’s pretty annoying.” He frowns, far off. “And the smells, they can get pretty overwhelming too, like” he points a finger right in Stiles’ face. “Your bed? Smells like an ocean of spunk.”

Stiles punches him in the shoulder, making him fall backwards next to Stiles, who rolls over and buries his face in his pillow. His apparently spunk-stinking pillow. Fuck. Cora’s been in his bed a trillion times and she never said anything. Fuck. “Shut up”, he slurs at a laughing Scott from his position of mortification.

When the laughter dies down, Stiles lifts his head off his pillow, looks for Scott’s eyes. “So why did you do it, really?”

Scott looks back, eyes clear, face earnest. “Oh, you know”, he shrugs. “The asthma attacks were getting pretty bad. The doctor said I had to change inhalers, but the new ones cost, like, an arm and a liver, even with my mom’s insurance from the hospital. We were looking through alternative solutions, so I suggested this… as an alternative solution.” Scott folds his hands on his belly. “I wanted to talk to you about it right away, because you’re my best friend, and you know so much about this stuff. But my mom got in contact with Talia first, and then, you know the rest…” Scott adopts a deep, chanting voice. “The circle must stay as small as possible.” He gives Stiles a pleading, sheepish smile. “I almost broke a million times, I swear. But then… I didn’t. And now we’re here.”

Stiles lets himself smile back, wide and slightly manic because he got his best friend back. “And now we’re here”, he agrees. He pulls himself up, sits cross-legged in the center of the bed, facing Scott who mirrors his position.

“I’m happy for you, bro”, Stiles affirms. “I am. My eye will stop twitching any second now.” Scott giggles good-naturedly. “And I’ll help you through this, dude. Any way I can.”

Scott squirms on the bed, gaze dropping to his knees. “So, it’s cool that you’re saying that, because, uhm”, he tells Stiles, tone prodding. Here we go. Scott leans to the right, takes something out of his jeans’ back pocket, hands it to Stiles.

Stiles bat his eyelashes at him. “A love letter? For me?”

Scott smiles at him. “If you want one bro, you only have to ask. But uhm”, he adds, biting on his thumb, “that one is for Allison.”

Of course it is. Stiles looks at him, right eyebrow arched, a quirk to his lips. “Do you spend your nights on her roof, howling at the moon, Scotty?”

Scott punches him on the shoulder. With werewolf strength. Ow. “Shut up, dick. Talia won’t let me see her until after I learn to control my, uhm… urges.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah, find your anchor, yada yada yada.”

Scott nods vehemently with him. “Exactly, yeah.” He sighs, love-lorn and miserable. “I told her I was sick from my new asthma medication and I had to take some time off school, but.” He scratches at his cheek. “I’m really scared Mr. Argent will tell her what happened before I get to.”

Well. That’s a very real possibility. As a reformed hunter and the Hale pack’s main ally, Chris Argent is very close to Talia and privy to any and all supernatural occurrence in Beacon Hills. He, David and Stiles’ dad go fishing together every chance they get. Supernatural news travels faster than you’d think in this town.

Stiles reaches out and squeezes his best friend’s shoulder. “I’ll give her the letter, don’t worry.”

Scott smiles at him, relieved. “And you’ll come to training too?” he tacks on, hopeful.

Stiles twists his mouth in a grimace. “Bro, I don’t think it’s a good id-”

“Please, Stiles, please?” Scott begs, puppy dog eyes in full force. “Talia put Derek in charge of training because Laura’s away at school and he’s supposed to be her second or whatever, and he’s such a dick, I can’t- And Boyd is there and he never says a thing and Cora’s just watching us and eating chips, I’m-” He takes Stiles’ hand in both of his, tugs a little. “Pleaaase, Stiles?”

Stiles shakes his head. “What do you want me to do about all that? Derek is a dick. Boyd is a pod person. Cora is unhelpful. What else is new? My presence won’t change anything.”

“Maybe it will keep me sane!” Scott half-yells, eyes wide.

Stiles considers his best friend, the newly-minted werewolf. He considers spending his afternoons sitting on the long-ago drained Nemeton watching his best friends and Derek tear into each other with claws and fangs while he munches on popcorn provided by Cora and repeats “remember: be your own anchor” ad nauseam. He considers the same situation minus himself. Derek glowering at Scott, making shitty and paranoid comments, and Scott finally snapping and eating Derek’s face off. Pretty entertaining, but he can’t have that. All things aside, it’s a pretty nice face with the cheekbones chiseled by angels and the multicolored eyes.

“Fine”, he relents. “You got it Scotty-boy. I’ll come to training. But I do have one condition.” He holds up a finger. Scott goes cross-eyed staring at it. “When I get chilly from sitting on a damp tree stump for hours watching you try to claw Derek to death, you have to cuddle me back to warmth.”

Scott’s mouth opens in a wide, blinding grin. He tackles Stiles to the bed again, squeezes the daylight out of him. Stiles will never get tired of werewolf cuddles.


	3. failure by design

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is short and Derek POV  
> the next chapter will be Stiles POV and angsty AF :D it should be up tomorrow/by sunday evening
> 
> sorry for any mistake/typo, I barely reread this one
> 
> the number of chapters will go up again. I'm basically gonna post a chapter per scene to stay motivated. sorry if that's a bother.
> 
> also I'm turning embarrassingly old today to hbd to me.

He ducks to the right, delivers a harsh blow to his assailant, sending him sprawling to the damp forest ground. He lets out a feral growl, lips curling over his fangs in a vicious grin. He braces himself for another attack when a ripping sound catches his attention. He turns. Stiles is sitting crossed legged on the tree stump that was once the Nemeton, the sacred tree for all supernatural beings, a source of power and life. Scott carved a heart right in the center of it two years ago, with S+A in the middle. These kids respect nothing.

Stiles is tearing through a bag of Cheetos, disgusting chemical smell wafting over to Derek. He devours a handful of them and wipes the Cheeto dust off his hand on the sacred magical tree stump he’s sitting on. Derek gives himself a second to fantasize about clawing his face off, following the pattern of his moles with each of his claw, Stiles’s breath itching in fear. He feels vaguely nauseated by the image. Maybe that’s too much violence, even for him.

Stiles looks up, probably noticing the lack of slashing and growling around him. He takes in everyone looking at him in some measure of amusement or disgust. With a quirk of his lips, he tips the bag toward them. “Cheeto?” he asks, the picture of innocence.

Cora snorts and bounds toward him, jostling him from his position of the stump, trying to steal his bag. Scott springs to his rescue and they devolve in laughter and yelps. Boyd looks on, arms crossed.

Derek takes a step toward him. “No snack break for you?” he asks.

Boyd shakes his head, a ghost of a smile on his usually blank face. “I’m more of a Dorito man.”

Derek snorts, looking at the three delinquents fighting over a bag of chips. Boyd’s always been his favorite out of his sister’s friends. Good choice for a Beta. Scott, on the other hand… what could have gone through his mom’s head for that one?

And Stiles. What is he even doing here? He’s just sitting there being useless and making smartass comments, shivering in the cold shade of the forest. He’s constantly distracting Scott and Cora. How is Derek supposed to teach them anything this way? It’s like they don’t understand that this isn’t a game, that they need to learn how to fight to survive. Derek can teach them, if only they would just-

It’s not even his job to do this, it’s Laura’s, but oh, she’s away at Law school and someday he will be his second and bla bla fucking blah. He doesn’t deserve this. Laura gets the cool perks of becoming alpha and being the older one, the one his mom goes to, and Derek gets saddled with a bunch of dissipated, moronic, Cheeto-stinking teenagers. Talk about fair.

Something tiny and fragrant hits the back of his head with a pop. Oh no. No no no. They didn't just throw a Cheeto at him. Big mistake. He turns around. Scott has Stiles in a headlock, bag of chips being tugged between them, and they’re staring up at him like deers stuck in headlights. At the same time, they point at the other with their index fingers, blinking wide eyes at Derek. His vision goes blue, and he roars. Scott springs away from Stiles, his face shifting into beta form. Stiles… laughs. He explodes into laughter, big bursts of sound hiccuping from him. He collapses over himself, hands on his stomach. Derek looks at Cora, startled. Maybe he’s having a stroke, or a psychotic break. Wouldn’t that be nice.

After a minute or two of them just staring flabbergasted at him as he just keeps losing it, Stiles finally hiccups back to reality, lying boneless on the Nemeton.

“Sorry dude. You just- you wolfed out over a Cheeto, I-” he says with a giant grin, scrunching his nose. Little shit.

Derek thinks about ripping his throat out. Right here, right now. But his mom would probably disapprove. And Stiles’ dad is the Sheriff. He definitely has wolfsbane bullets on hand. He settles for scowling as hard as he possibly can, pulling his brow in a single, menacing line. “Why are you here Stiles?”  
He pushes himself in a sitting position, flails his arms around like it’s supposed to mean something to Derek. He looks at Cora and Scott. “Moral support”, he answers Derek, the “duh” heavily implied.

Derek sighs through his nose, nostrils flaring. He looks over at a pleading, wide-eyed Scott and an unimpressed Cora. He turns back to Stiles, crossing his arms.  
“Fine. Be quiet”, he intones, “or leave.”

Stiles nods his understanding, a corner of his mouth still infuriatingly ticked up.

Derek turns his back to Stiles. He slides his shirt off, ignores the snort coming from behind him.

“Playtime is over”, he tells the other wolves, letting the pull of the wolf inside him rearrange the bones of his face to his Beta form. “Attack me. Both of you, at the same time”, he directs at Boyd and Scott. Scott rolls his eyes but his fingers extend into claws. He follows as Boyd charges at Derek, yellow eyes flashing. Derek plants his feet in the mushy forest ground, his senses honing in on the targets before him. Here we go.

Scott’s back hits the wet ground with a yelp for what must be the hundredth time in a thirty minute period. Through the blue hues of his vision, Derek sees Cora wincing in sympathy from the tree branch she’s perched on. “Again”, he says through his fangs.

Scott sits up, groaning, but doesn’t get up. Next to him, Boyd is hunched over, hands on his knees, recovering from a slash of claws to the gut. Preys, Derek’s wolf brain supplies.

“Dude”, Scott wheezes. “Mercy. Let’s stop for today. Please.”

Derek scowls at him. He has to concentrate a little for the fangs to recede enough for him to be able to talk. “We’re not stopping until you two understand-”

“Understand what?” Scott exclaims, temper rising. “You’re not teaching us anything, Derek, you’re just- kicking our asses!”

Derek looks to the heavens, praying for patience and strength. When none come, he looks to Cora, who looks back, eyebrows raised. He doesn’t even consider turning to the loud heartbeat mouthbreathing behind him, though he can hear him twitching.

“I am trying to teach you how to fight”, he snaps. He grits his teeth for a harsh second,  trying to gather enough calm to keep going without any punching. “I know you don’t understand yet how dangerous it is to be a shifter, but you will soon. Your safety depends on the pack, and the pack depends on your protection. We’re brothers now, Scott-”

“Let me stop you right there big guy”, Stiles’ voice is loud, echoing through the trees after so long - for him - keeping quiet. “If the next words out of your mouth are “the bite is a gift”, he fake-grunts in a poor imitation of Derek, “I will need you to give me a 30-second warning so I can record it and send it to Laura.”

The three younger betas snort, tension effectively diffused. Derek turns around slowly, makes eye contact with Stiles. He’s still somehow eating Cheetos, looking very pleased with himself. Derek snaps his teeth at him. Stiles just snorts, and chokes on a Cheeto. Cora’s next to him in an instant, thumping his back as he coughs the disgusting orange thing out. She looks at Derek, a single eyebrow raised in judgment. Whatever.

“Fine”, he says, turning back to Scott and Boyd, who are taking stock of their ruined clothes, making faces at the dried blood caked in various rips. “We’re done for today.”

He doesn’t wait for them to gather their stuff and stalks to the trees. He’s got just enough time for a shower before he’s meeting with Jennifer anyway. He promised to show her around the gallery in a more… private setting. He’ll show her his canvassing workshop too. Stiles’ voice in his head asks if that’s an innuendo. Dammit.


	4. sugar we're going down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not very happy with how this chapter turned out, but I'm done agonizing over it. :/
> 
> Next one will be Derek POV and hopefully much more entertaining. I'm almost done with the angst (that's a lie, there's more angst to come, but not for a while).

Things are back to normal, Stiles guesses. Except all of his best friends are werewolves now. Stiles will go to Cora’s house to study after school and find Scott already lounging a couch, eating his entire weight in chips, and Boyd with his math homework sprawled on Cora’s bedroom floor. It’s not that he can’t share his friends, it’s just… different. An adjustment. Stiles is not very adaptable, is all.  

Scott makes first line at Lacrosse, and Coach harasses Boyd until he tries out, too. Nothing changes much, they just win by wider margins. Stiles has to deal with two more annoyingly ripped teenagers in the locker room. No big deal.

Cora’s acting different too. More accurately, it seems that she goes out of her way to act like nothing is different at all. It’s super weird. Cora is a very “in your face” kind of girl. She will not always use words, but she will always find a way to make how she feels known loud and clear. It mostly means learning to distinguish between punches. There are happy punches (in the solar plexus), playful punches (in the shoulder), tired punches (in the face), sad punches (in the meat of the arm), apology punches (in the back of the knee for some godforsaken reason) and angry punches (in the crotch). Not the healthiest way of communicating, but direct enough. Laura and David are the touchy-feely ones in the Hale family set.

Anyway, Stiles and Cora never had to pretend or lie or ignore stuff between them. Any bad laundry was aired directly, solved with a slap fight or a hug. Manful tears (Stiles’) were shed. Rince, repeat. Stiles doesn’t know how to act around Cora when she’s being aggressively stoic.

He thinks about confronting her point blank. He thinks about blasting Avril Lavigne’s Complicated outside her bedroom window at midnight. He thinks about leaving the country forever for seriously considering the previous option. Anyway. He’s a mess, even more than usual. His nails are bitten beyond salvation, and he really needs to stop popping Adderall like it’s candy because that shit’s expensive  

He’s started getting jumpy(-er than usual) when people address him directly. He’s over analyzing everything Cora says or does to or with or beside him. He knows that’s a very slippery slope. He’s afraid alright? He’s afraid he’s losing his best friend. Lydia’s been throwing his these pitying glances at lunch, like he’s a lost puppy. He hates these looks. He’s not a lost puppy, he’s a sexy, mysterious puppy. Look, forget about the puppy.

He thinks about asking Scott for advice, or even Boyd or D- no. Not Derek. Laura maybe. Or David. But he’s afraid of what they might say. They might look at him the way Lydia does as he stuffs his face with barely reheated, semi-organic pizza. They might screw up their mouths, shoulders high and awkward. Tell Stiles that it’s just the way things are. Werewolves run in packs. People who are not pack eventually… drift off. They might pat him on the back and feel sad for the poor human who thought he could keep up with wolves. 

God, he’s pathetic. He skips fifth period, slips out and runs toward Roscoe. He slips into the lumpy seat, breathes in its stale-Cheeto and gym bag smell, lets himself drift into a headspace of comfort and calm. Or, as calm as he ever gets. He drives around town for a while, careful to avoid the more popular streets where Sheriff station cruisers patrol regularly. Without thinking, he finds himself at the outskirts of town, warehouses and zoning complexes replacing homes and shops. 

He stops in the parking lot of the depleted old stadium that was left here to die in the eighties, when the funds to keep it up ran out. He takes his old running shoes from the back of the car and gets himself reacquainted with the racing track. Stiles likes coming here sometimes, when his head's too full for even the Adderall to handle. The tracks are cracked, faded and dirty with rotting leaves. He has to watch where he steps. The entire stadium has been vandalized so many times, it looks like the vestige of an old forgotten civilization. In some ways it is. 

With not a soul around to watch him or talk to, Stiles just runs. It’s a bit like training for the zombie apocalypse in this spooky atmosphere, the grey sky set low over his head. He runs and runs and runs and doesn’t think about anything.

Cora finds him there, hours or seconds later. One minute he’s running and the next he’s going down with one hundred and twenty pounds of werewolf attached to his back. They slump on the tracks, Stiles turning on his back and catching his breath, looking at the blanket of grey clouds overhead. Cora’s snickering next to him, lying on her side and looking up at him, her ankle hooked around his foot. Stiles looks back at her. They smile at one another, big and unbidden, full of freshly released adrenalin. They’re always clicking with each other. It’s so easy for Stiles to be Cora’s best friend.

Then he remembers there’s a world outside of this comfortable bubble and its horror movie setting. He remember his bitten fingernails and his nerves. He remembers why his stomach feels like it's collapsing in on itself. He sits up, hugs his knees and looks straight ahead. 

Cora sits up next to him, punches his shoulder blade lightly (concerned punch, Stiles notes). “You skipped school”, she says. 

He shrugs. He did, evidently. She probably followed his scent as soon as school let out, probably wasn’t even subtle about it. Damn werewolves.

“You missed a chemistry pop quiz”, Cora presses.

He shrugs again. He’ll live. Harris hates him anyway, he would have found a way to make him fail.

Cora is getting frustrated. A mute Stiles Stilinski is a very rare thing. She hates having to do the talking. He’s usually the one filling her silence. 

“What’s going on, Stilinski?” she asks. ”You’ve been acting super weird lately.”

Stiles whips his head around to stare at her. “ _ I’ve _ been- what-” He grits his teeth, sighs. “I’ve just been… stressed. You know. Changes.”

Cora grunts, knocks his shoulder with hers. She knows Stiles and change are not very good friends. “What about?” she asks, voice low.

“Oh, you know.” He scratches his cheek, tries to evade the question. “Stuff. And things.”

Cora smiles up at him, scrunching her nose. “Stuff and things?” she prompts.

Fine. He’ll talk. “Yeah”, he says, picking at what’s left of his nails. “Things have been kind of weird since- you know.”

Cora frowns at him, shakes her head.

Stiles eyeballs her. “Dude. You  _ know _ .”

Cora leans back, rolling her eyes with her whole upper body. “What, Stilinski?” She sighs, nostrils flaring in irritation. “You can never shut up, why are you being so damn cagey all of a sudden? For once, I’m asking you to  _ please _ , fucking  _ talk _ .”

“Oh my god, Cora!” Stiles exclaims, frustrated. “Don’t play dense. Things have been weird since Boyd and Scott were bitten by your mom.”

Cora’s face goes pinched. She does look a lot like her brother this way. “I thought you- got over that”, she mumbles.

Stiles lifts his head up, stares at the menacing sky. “I did.” His temper is simmering right at the surface of his skin. He feels like an exposed wire, ready to burn anyone who comes too close. “I had a long, nice, touchy-feely talk with Scott and we’re good now.” He makes a back and forth gesture with his right hand to emphasize his words. “ _ We _ are not good, Cor. Things have been weird between  _ us _ .”

Cora’s frowning so hard it’s almost a scowl. “No they haven’t”, she counters.

Stiles wishes he was leaning on a wall so he could bash his head against it. “Yes, they have! You said so yourself!”

Cora’s getting seriously mad now. Stiles knows he should tread lightly, but he can’t. This has been cooking up for a while.

“ _ I’ve _ been fine”, Cora says, pointing at his chest. “ _ You’ve _ been acting weird and twitchy and leaking anxiety all over the place. I know you’ve been abusing Adderall too, you smell all weird.” Her voice gets shrill. “And like, all of a sudden you don’t talk anymore! One day I can’t get you to shut up about the history of male circumcision and you asking me if werewolves can get circumcised which, gross, and the next you’ve gone mute! What the fuck is that about?”

“I’m sorry I’m just a stupid human cramping your style, Cora!” Stiles yells.

“What?” Her eyes are big, staring at Stiles like she has no idea who he is. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Stiles runs his hands in his hair, tugs a little as he fists his hands there. He wants this conversation to be over, he wants to apologize and yell and run away. 

“If I inconvenience you so much with my weird smells and my moods and the fact that I don’t have a special nose to sniff how you feel all the time, maybe this should… stop”, he says.

“Oh my god, stop doing the martyr thing!” Cora throws her hands up. “It’s super gross.”

“I’m not- being a martyr, I’m- look.” Stiles sighs, at a loss. He closes his eyes. “I- maybe I should just ask Talia for it.”

Cora looks at him. She looks and looks and looks. “Ask mom for what?” she asks, voice dangerously calm.

Stiles swallows. “The bite. What if I asked Talia for it?” he asks, finally meeting Cora’s eyes.

Cora lunges toward him. He doesn’t register the movement until he doubles over in pain. Who the fuck punches people they supposedly like in the stomach? The Hales, that’s who. As Stiles coughs up his lungs, Cora springs to her feet, begins pacing.

“Why would you even say that?” she yells. She stops in front of him, arms crossed. “Fuck, Stilinski, of all the stupid shit you’ve said over the years, that’s probably the stupidest!”

Stiles looks up at her, eyes watering. He just got punched in the stomach by his oldest friend. Why is he the one feeling vaguely shameful and getting yelled at? He coughs again. “Why?” he asks, voice rough. “Why’s that stupid?” 

Stiles ducks to the right as Cora makes a movement to kick him. “Ouch, Cora, stop!”

“No!” she yells, “stop saying total bullshit!” 

Stiles gets up too, careful not to jostle his tender stomach. “What’s your fucking problem?” he shouts back, getting right up in her face. “Why don’t you want me to be a wolf? Am I not good enough for your pack, is that it? Do you guys only take really pretty dudes, or- or not spastic ones?”

Cora pushes on his shoulders, making him stumble back a step or two. Her eyes is glowing faintly yellow in the rapidly fading daylight. “Stiles! Seriously?”

He’s not sure what he’s even saying, with his blood rushing in his ears, shame and anger mixing in his aching gut. “What? I’m only good enough to be your pet human, right?” he spits at her. “You don’t want me in your pack.”

“Stilinski”, Cora hisses through fangs.

Stiles knows he should back down, but he’s feeling particularly vulnerable right now, and he feels like attacking where it hurts. “You know, your creepy uncle, Peter, he offered me the bite once”, he tells Cora, eyes narrowed to slits. “So clearly at least one of the Hales thought I was good enough to be a wolf!”

“Stiles, what even-” she grits her teeth. “When was that? What did he do to you?” she growls at him.

“Nothing!” He crosses his arms. “I was just duct-taping Roscoe that summer I got her, in your front yard, and he was there creeping around, and he took my wrist out of thin air and asked if I wanted the bite. I thought he was insane, nevermind he isn’t even an alpha.”

“That fucking ass-” she cuts herself off, punches the air. “Peter should never have offered that!”

“Yeah, I know.” He rolls his eyes with his whole head, points at himself. “Not werewolf material. I got it loud and clear, thanks.”

“Stiles!” she roars in his face. “You don’t get it! That’s not-”

“That’s not WHAT, Cora?” he shouts. She winces next to him. Werewolves and loud noises. Another thing he will never get to experience. “What’s the magical explanation why you don’t me in your pack? What the fuck are you even doing here? I didn’t invite you here! Why are you even my friend?”

“You’re losing it Stilinski”, Cora says through gritted teeth, arms crossed protectively over her belly. Stiles can see she’s barely hanging on to her control, trying to contain her wolf. Her hands are curled into fists so Stiles won’t see the prick of her claws. He should stop. They should stop.

“Maybe I am!” he yells at her. “So what? It’s not your fucking problem, Cora. Leave me the fuck alone.” He turns away from her.

“Stiles”, she calls, taking a hesitant step toward him.

He shakes his head. “Listen to the heartbeat”, he tells her, as cold and steel as he can manage. What is he doing? “Leave. Me. Alone.” 

He wills himself not to turn away, stays hunched over himself, looking at the cracked tracks and his battered sneakers, barely visible in the twilight. He almost doesn’t hear her as she walks away from him.


	5. i will follow you into the dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, have another chapter! I hope you like this one, because I had a lot of fun writing it. :)
> 
> THANK YOU SO MUCH to the regular commenters, you guys make my day every single time :) :) :)

Derek has an itching feeling in his gut. It just appeared and it won’t go away and he doesn’t know why. It feels like a bother, like an constant ache. Like someone in the pack is in distress, like the connection between members of the pack is vibrating somehow. He keeps popping claws, scratching the leather seats of the Camaro (the horror), snatching on his clothes. He can’t help himself. As soon as he forgets to concentrate on keeping control of his human side, they pop back out. 

He drives around aimlessly, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong, wrong, so wrong. He checks on his mom at work, on his dad at home. He checks and rechecks every square inch of the house until his dad can’t take him sniffing around and throws him out. He goes over to Scott’s house and won’t ever be able to unsee him making out with the Argent girl. He checks on Boyd and gets raised eyebrows over a paused video game. He finds Cora sulking on a very high branch in a tree at the entrance of the preserve. He doesn’t ask what she’s sulking about because he likes his arms and legs where they are, but she seems physically fine, at least. He calls Laura, gets voicemail, calls again, gets voicemail, calls again, gets his tympans popped as she yells “oh my god stop motherhenning me!” into the receiver. 

They’re all fine, he tells his claws as they pop out and scratch the steering wheel. What the fuck is happening to him? He thinks about checking on Jennifer, but she’s out of town at a conference and he doesn’t want to bombard her with texts. He’s not that needy. 

He drives and drives and drives and his brain just runs off and latches on this bad-wrong-need feeling he has settled deep in the primal part of him. When his human senses switch back on, he’s parking the car in a familiar part of the preserve, close to the overlook he used to come to as a teenager to make out with girls. He stopped doing it when Laura caught him that one time. She was already evil then.

He steps out of the car, puzzled, and is immediately assaulted by a familiar earthy smell, overly sweet and wrong. He looks to the heavens, his view partially blocked by trees, and asks the black sky what he ever did to deserve this.

He follows the scent right over to the very edge of the overlook. There, he’s greeted by the sorry sight of Stiles Stilinski, lying on his back and mumbling to himself, a half-full bottle of off-brand whiskey dangling from his fingers. Goddam. Even from where Derek is standing, he reeks of alcohol. Derek takes a step forward, hating himself. Stiles hasn’t seen him yet, he could turn around and leave, pretend he wasn’t even here. So why isn’t he?

He’s stuck in place, trying to make himself run, when Stiles arches his back off the ground, mouth opening wide. A godawful noise escapes his throat, grating on Derek’s ears and vaguely familiar. The moron is trying to howl at the moon.

“It’s not even full yet, you moron”, Derek says, making Stiles jump three feet into the air. He lets go of the bottle, then flails desperately trying to catch it before it shatters on the ground. Luckily for him, the bottle just bounces a bit on the dead leaves before spilling what’s left of its guts in a puddle next to Stiles’ feet. 

“You- what- Derek! You- look what you made me do!” Stiles exclaims, slurring his words. 

Great. The idiot is totally wasted. “You had enough”, he tells him, frowning. He crosses his arms for emphasis. 

Stiles rolls his eyes. “How’s- how wouldju know, wolfman?” He takes the bottle in both of his hands, looks down at it sadly as he mumbles. “Can’t- even get drunk stupid dude wants to tell other people what to do. He can’t tell me what t- to do, no siree, he-”, Stiles hiccups. “If I was a wolf I- I would let people drink aaaall the booze, I-”

“You can’t be a wolf, Stiles”, Derek breaks him out of his drunken rant, frowning.

Stiles startles a bit, like he forgot Derek was even there. He lifts his head slowly, finds Derek’s eyes with great difficulty. He glares at him, eyes slightly unfocused. When Derek doesn’t react, Stiles starts flailing about, grunting his way into a precarious standing position. 

“Yeah, thank you, Derek”, he drawls, gesturing wide with his arms, left hand still clutching the empty whiskey bottle. “Y’ sister made it perfrect- prefect- very clear already.” He throws his hands toward Derek. Derek resists the impulse to flinch. “I’m not good enough to be a stupid little furry  _ dog _ like you guys, uh?” he says, tone dripping venom and misery. Derek could push him off the edge of the cliff. No one would know.

“Hyperactive, scrawny Stiles, always ruins everything!” Stiles continues to rant, volume steadily rising. He’s pacing around on Bambi legs, gesturing wildly. He’s going to hurt himself. Derek doesn't care. 

Stiles whirls around on Derek, points at him, realizes he’s about twenty inches off to the left, readjusts his aim. Ridiculous. “I’d be a much better wolf than- than Scott or, or you, Derek!”

He makes a sweeping gesture with the hand holding the bottle, upsetting his balance. He stumbles back a step or two, trying not to fall down on his ass. Time slows down, blood sluggish in Derek’s veins, as he watches Stiles’ arms windmill, feet scraping of the edge of the cliff, face surprised as he tips back into the void. Derek leaps to him, grabs the front of his hoodie and wrenches him forward, sending them both sprawling on the mushy forest floor with the force of his movement.

Derek lies there, stunned and out of breath, looking at the vibrant stars littering the black sky, his hand still fisted in the front of Stiles’ hoodie, who landed beside him with a soft oof. He takes the time to catch his breath, letting his heart rate settle. He makes his hand let go of Stiles, pushes himself into a sitting position. He tries to conjure the combination of anger and irritation he always feels where Stiles is concerned, but all he feels is relief. Relief that he was able to protect one of his own. Dammit. Stupid fucking kid.

“Dammit”, he grits his teeth. He scowls at Stiles, still lying on the ground, breathing erratic and white as a sheet. “Are you done?” he asks.

Stiles looks up at him, eyes wide and retrospectively scared. 

Derek sighs through his nose. “You can’t be a wolf because you are marked by magic, you moron”, Derek tells him. He doesn’t know why he tells him. It feels momentous, for some reason. He can’t make himself shut up. “You have the emissary thing - the Spark, or whatever. When the time comes, you’ll train with Deaton - you know, the veterinarian - and become emissary for the pack.”

Stiles slowly pushes on both of his hands to sit up, eyeballing Derek like he just sprouted a second head. Derek shifts, awkward under the scrutiny. He scratches the dirt off his hands with one of his claws, avoids the lightbeam of Stiles’ stare.

After what feels like an eternity of sitting there in uncomfortable silence, Stiles speaks, voice scratchy from whiskey and adrenaline. “How-”, he cuts himself off, tries again, “how am I supposed to know this shit if nobody tells me?” His tone is both relieved and deeply aggravated.

Derek frowns, giving himself a second to ponder Stiles’ quite valid question. “I don’t know”, he grunts. He looks at the black sky, the sprawling city lights below them. “You’ve read the books”, he reminds Stiles. “It’s supposed to be a big cosmic reveal or something. The fates coming together or some magic nonsense.” 

Stiles is silent beside him for so long that Derek glances at him, checking if he didn’t pass out or fall asleep. He finds him frowning, staring at the city lights ahead, biting on a mangled nail. Feeling Derek’s eyes on him, he turns his head slowly, locking eyes with him.

“A big cosmic reveal like being saved from certain death by the second of the pack on a full moon?” he asks, voice low.

Derek snorts. “It’s not a full moon.”

Stiles mouth ticks up at him as he gestures toward the sky. “Semantics, dude. It’s the full moon’s eve, same difference.”

“I’m not second of the pack”, Derek counters, eyebrows raised.

Stiles smiles at him, mischievous. “Yet.” 

Derek feels vaguely nauseated. His ears are hot. Maybe he’s gotten cursed somehow? He wishes the discomfiting feeling would go away. He should get up and leave, let Stiles go back to his drunken brooding or whatever the hell. But now that he’s prevented him from falling to his death, his pack instincts are tugging at him, making him want to make sure the little bastard is safe and cared for. He doesn’t like this part of werewolfhood much. 

He sits next to Stiles, elbows on his knees, and they watch the city lights go on and off below them. Thankfully, Stiles has been given enough to ruminate on, so he’s not running his mouth a million miles a minute and driving Derek up a fucking tree.

“So, where d’you disappear to all the time?” Stiles asks in a surprisingly chipper, upbeat tone. Derek totally jinxed it, didn’t he.

“None of your business, Stiles”, he mutters, praying Stiles just lets it go.

“It kinda is”, Stiles counters. Little shit. “You know, as emass- emiss- emissary of your pack.”

Derek sighs, drawn out and aggravated. “You’re not emissary yet. And I could still throw you off the edge and make it look like an accident.”

Stiles laughs, head tipped up toward the sky, exposing the long column of his pale throat. His smell is a confusing mess of fading alcohol, panic, relief and happiness. The sweetness of it is exacerbated somehow. Derek breathes through his mouth as subtly as he can. Stiles knocks their shoulders together, bringing Derek back to reality. When did they move so close to each other? 

“C’mon, Der-bear”, Stiles teases. Laura invented this nickname when they were little and for that she will pay, somehow, some day. 

“Stiles”, Derek growls menacingly.

“You can tell me”, Stiles continues, unbothered. “I’d keep your secret.”

Derek shakes his head. “From my sister? Doubtful.”

“No dude, I’m a great secret keeper”, Stiles protests, hitting Derek’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “I’ve never told anybody that the first girl Scott kissed wasn’t Allison but Lydia.” He smiles at nothing, then startles. Moron. Stiles looks at Derek with big eyes, looking more panicked than he did twenty minutes ago when he was  _ about to fall to his death _ . 

“Oh shit”, he says, wringing his hands together. “Please, Derek, please, don’t tell Cora”, he begs. “If she found out, she’d kill him. Please.”

Derek rolls his eyes. Cora would definitely inflict a great deal of pain on Scott for even touching her precious Lydia Martin. “A great secret keeper indeed”, Derek drawls sarcastically.

Stiles shrugs. “This doesn’t count anyway. I’m drunk and you’re-”, Stiles gestures toward Derek vaguely. Derek chooses not to try to interpret it. “So. Free pass.”

They manage to stew in silence for an impressive thirty-three seconds before Stiles pipes up again. Derek could always knock him unconscious. No harm no foul no dead body.

“So?” Stiles prompts, loud in the eerie silence of the forest. “D’ you find a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend, no judgment here”, he adds quickly, heartbeat raised slightly.

Derek looks at him in concern. He notices the blush on Stiles’ cheeks, his heartbeat still erratic. He might have caught one of those human illnesses sitting here on the damp forest ground in the middle of the night. Like a cold or the plague or something. “I should get you home.”

“N-no, dude, we’re bonding!” Stiles protests. “That’s really important between pack mates, Derek.”

Ugh. Fine. He’ll indulge him a few more minutes. “Fine.” Stiles gives him a prodding look. Derek looks down at his boots. “I did. Uhm, I am. Seeing someone. Her name’s Jennifer. She’s... cool.”

He keeps his gaze focused on his boots as Stiles lazer-eyes the side of his face. He doesn’t know why he just spilled his secret on Stiles, of all people. It just… happened.

“Wow”, Stiles finally says, tone wondering. Derek chances a look at him. He’s got a lopsided grin on his face. Oh no. “Stellar endorsement there, Derek. Don’t hurt yourself praising her.” Derek rolls his eyes, but Stiles goes on, grin widening. “If it were me-”

“If it were you I was dating?” Derek cuts him off, eyebrows raised as high as he can manage.

“N- no!” Stiles protests, blush high on his cheeks. He hits Derek’s shoulder again. He’s been spending too much time with Cora. “If it were me, talking about someone I- I like”, Stiles plows on, “I would, like, serenade them, and woo the shit out of them.”

He’s looking up at the stars, eyes sparkling with intensity and inebriation, hands fisted on his knees. It’s possibly the grossest sight Derek has ever laid eyes upon. 

“Sounds romantic”, he says, sarcastic and biting.

Stiles turns his intense, wide eyes on him. Please, someone make it stop.“Oh, it will be”, Stiles tells him, serious. “You’ll see.” 

Derek frowns at him. “See what?” 

Stiles is staring at him fiercely, face open. Derek swallows. Stiles opens his mouth, and promptly vomits all over Derek’s boots. He bought this pair two weeks ago. Dammit. 


	6. makedamnsure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles POV, short and pretty much filler stuff :)
> 
> thank you guys for commenting! <3

Something hits his side, jostling his precious, precious head, causing all sorts of explosions in his brain. “Grgnnnnh”, Stiles protests vehemently, holding on to his sagging head by his hair. He opens one eye and is immediately assaulted by the sight of Scott’s grinning face, not two inches from his own.

“Gah”, Stiles startles. He almost falls off his chair, but Scott shoots out an arm and holds him back by the front of his hoodie. Two for two for the werewolves of the Hale pack. 

Scott snorts at his misery as Stiles gingerly settles back on his chair, lowers his head oh so carefully on the desk in front of him. The cool plastic soothes his feverish skin. Oh god. He’s probably gonna die here.

“Hey dude, you okay?” Scott shouts in his ear.

Stiles lifts a weak arm to swat at him. Scott ducks it easily, pokes him in the side.

“Stiles”, he yells into the very fiber of Stiles’ being.

“Shutuuuurp”, Stiles mutters into the desk.

A click of heels hammers itself into Stiles’ skull. Lydia’s excessively shrill voice pierces his tympan. “Enjoying your hangover, Stilinski?”

Stiles blinks up at her, choosing not to dignify that question with an answer. She smirks down at him. She’s evil. Cora and she are clearly made for each other.

Scott looks at Lydia in surprise, then back down at Stiles. “Oh”, he shouts, puzzled. Stiles moans at him. Why won’t he stop yelling? Does he hate Stiles?

“You got drunk without me?”, Scott bellows, betrayed. Moron probably forgot he can’t even get drunk anymore. “Why? What happened last night?”

Again with the yelling. Stiles slaps his chest as hard as he can manage with his eyes still blissfully closed. Scott just blinks at him.

“Fight. Cora. Booze. Ugh”, he groans.

Scott chuckles, making the entire world around them vibrate unpleasantly. “Explains why she’s skipping today”, he screams conspiratorially. Why is he friends with Scott again?

“So, where did you go? How did you get home?” Scott presses.

Stiles’ mouth is lead. And it tastes of dead racoon. Point is: he doesn’t want to open it.

“D’r’k”, he mumbles.

“What did you say?” Scott shrieks.

Seriously. Dude’s got werewolf hearing. How obnoxious can you get.

Stiles squints at him, trying to make his brain explode with the power of his boozed-up mind.

“Derek”, he articulates as best as he can. Ow. His teeth hurt.

Scott frowns. “Derek what? Derek  _ Hale _ ?” he shouts, voice echoing into every dark corner of Stiles’ cranium. 

That’s it. Stiles is revoking his best friend status. From now on, Scott is just a vague acquaintance. As soon as he can sit upright, he’ll send him an e-card to signify him his demotion, with “Somebody that I used to know” as background music. Yeah, that is happening.

“Yeah”, the creature of the black lagoon says through Stiles’ throat. “He- was there. He- said stuff. Then. I don’t remember.” He frowns, sending his entire face into agony. He’s  _ never _ drinking  _ again _ .

Scott is looking at him judgmentally. Stiles doesn’t care; he doesn’t even know this guy. “Are you sure you didn’t hallucinate Derek there?” he says like the worst fucking possible friend to someone who is not Stiles because they are not friends anymore, nuh uh. “Was he naked?” he asks, nose scrunched up.

Stiles wishes he could move his legs so he could walk out on him. He’s considering just flopping out of the classroom like a worm to get away from this pale copy of his ex-best friend when Harris enters the classroom. Stiles cringes, tries to bury himself into the plastic of the desk. A cool hand finds the nape of his neck, and he feels the painful haze of his hangover leave him bit by bit. He blinks up, surprised, at a very pleased-looking Scott.

“Talia taught me this neat little trick the other day”, he tells Stiles, voice low, as Harris starts writing on the board, ignoring them for a few more blissful seconds. Stiles sits up slowly, feeling strangely light, Scott’s hand still plastered to his neck. 

Scott winks at him. “I got your back, buddy”, he whispers. 

Stiles could kiss him. Scott McCall is the most beautiful, most generous, most incredible friend a lucky guy like Stiles could ever ask for. He loves him forever and ever and ever. No take backs.

::

Stiles lets himself fall into the chair opposite Scott at the cafeteria. Scott looks up, giving him a slightly condescending, sympathetic smile.

“Feeling better, bud?” he asks, munching on a fry he stole from Allison’s tray. 

“Yeah, fine”, Stiles answers. He clears his throat, his voice still sleep rough. After Scott’s little werewolf mojo earlier, he skipped second and third period and took a nap in the back of Roscoe, buried under a pile of hoodies and candy wrappers. His mind is much clearer, even though most of his muscles are still sore. He’s a star athlete, goddammit. He should recover faster from a measly hangover. 

He shakes himself. He’s got a thing to accomplish here. He used fourth period to formulate a plan. 

Step one: he’s going to ask Scott to take him to Deaton after school. Step two: he’s going to convince Deaton to start training him. Step three: he’s going to train with Deaton. Step four: there’s no step four. That’s all the steps he has so far. Stiles is going to train to be the Hale pack emass- emir- emissary, and he’s going to be the best goddam emissary anybody has ever seen. He’s going to kick some seriously magical ass. And when he’s really powerful and respected, he’s going to find the balls to yell at Talia for not circumventing fate or whatever and finding a way to tell him he’s always been part of the pack and he’s magic, goddammit. 

So, here he is. Working on step one. Of his plan. Yes. 

“So”, he says. He looks up from his lunch sitting there forlornly on the tray in front of him and finds that Scott is not, in fact, listening to him, but shoving his tongue into Allison’s mouth. So gross. People are eating. Lydia, sitting on his right side, pats his shoulder commiseratingly, as if she can hear his thoughts. Fuck, maybe she can. Fuck, now all he can think about is porn. Featuring redheads with big boobs. Fuck. Okay, he needs to thinks about something pure. Puppies. Rainbows. Lacrosse. Jackson Whittemore’s bare ass.  _ Fuck. _

He chances a glance at Lydia, but she’s ignoring him, gossiping about this that and the other thing with Danny, who’s sitting on her other side. Phew. Close one. 

Anyway. His plan. Step one. Here we go. 

He clears his throat obnoxiously. Allison’s left hand fists into Scott’s hair. Stiles kicks Scott’s chair as hard as he can. Scott startles, and effectively detaches himself from Allison’s mouth. He looks at Stiles, annoyed, as Allison death glares at him. That’s more like it. 

Stiles smiles at both of them benignly. He fears Allison’s painful vengeance, so he tips his tray toward her. “Fry?”

She accepts with a smile, effectively distracted from exacting cruel revenge on Stiles. Scott huffs next to her. 

“What?” 

He’s trying to do this thing where he acts all huffy and mad but he can’t because he’s Scott and he’s a puppy and Stiles is his best buddy forever and ever and ever. Stiles counts down from five. Before he’s even gotten to two, Scott is smiling at him. Puppy.

“So”, Stiles repeats now that he’s got Scott’s attention, “you’ve got work this afternoon?”

Scott nods, curious. Stiles usually doesn’t tag along to the clinic. It smells perpetually like cat piss and frankly, he thinks Deaton is fucking annoying. He’s interacted enough with the guy when he’s over at the Hale house having quiet conversations with Talia and David or perusing books from the Hale library. He’s a cryptic, cagey asshole, constantly holding his secret knowledge of the supernatural over people and never answering Stiles’ hundred million questions and yeah. Stiles doesn’t like him. 

But it doesn’t matter, because he’s magic, and Deaton is the only one in this tiny stupid town that can teach him how to harness it. Stiles looked around for other solutions, believe him. But there’s no magic tutorial on youtube (unless you want to learn Muggle magic, which. no. yuck), and Stiles knows every book in the Hale library backwards and forwards. There’s surprisingly little in there about magic. 

So Stiles will learn with Deaton, and refrain from bashing his head in. Easy peasy.

“I’ll come with you. I need to talk to Deaton”, he tells Scott.

Scott cocks his head to the right. Stiles swears one his ears twitches. “What about?”

“Stuff”, he says, looking at his hands. 

“What stuff?” Scott presses. “Do you want to ask him for a hangover remedy? Because, dude, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. Just take some Advil or something.”

Stiles snorts. “No, dude. I need to- talk to him about something”, he says, lowering his voice so only Scott will be able to hear him. 

Scott leans toward him, intrigued. “Full moon stuff?” he asks, trying for subtle and missing by a mile or two.

Stiles rolls his eyes at him. “Sort of.”

It’s one of these blessed few days where they don’t have Lacrosse practice after class, so they stuff Scott’s bike into the Jeep and drive to Deaton directly after school. The animal clinic is in this really dingy part of town, just one of many nondescript, low brick buildings. It’s a pretty depressing place, if you forget about the puppies and kittens. 

Stiles squares his shoulders, follows Scott inside. He gets the same feeling he got in his gut when Derek told him he had the Spark. Like fate or destiny or some other cosmic bullshit. Like he’s enacting a plan made for him by forces he doesn’t understand. Chills run down his spine.

As they round the counter of the deserted welcoming area and enter the exam room, they see Deaton, back turned to them, pouring some sort of creepy herbal concoction from one vial to another, the only light in the room a bright white spot over his work table. Creeptastic. 

“Hey doc!”, Scott greets sunnily.

Deaton stands up to his full height, turns toward them slowly, hands in the pockets of his white lab coat. He arches one eyebrow at the sight of Stiles, standing awkwardly next to Scott.

“Mr. Stilinski”, he nods at Stiles, “I’ve been expecting you.”

Alright. So Stiles will have to work a little bit harder than planned on not bashing his head in. No big deal.


	7. everything is alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here ya go, thank you for sticking with me!
> 
> work kicked my butt, but I'm back, baby. even tho Nano is over, I'll keep writing until this fic is over. next chapter up tomorrow or tonight.
> 
> as always, thank u for the comments, they keep me alive. hearts upon you, hearts upon your cow.

“Again”, Derek yells. In a blur of movement, Cora launches herself at Boyd. They’re working on anchors today, trying to hold on to their human side as long as possible even in situations of extreme stress. Traditionally, it is taught by getting one beta to charge at the other, and having them concentrate on trying to stay human as long as possible. That’s how Derek and Laura learned, under Talia’s watchful gaze, when they were barely teenagers. 

Right now it feels more like torture, watching Cora viciously swipe at Boyd as he tries not to wolf out. Jesus Christ, she’s just supposed to scare him, not draw blood. He chose her because she’s the born werewolf out of the bunch, she’s supposed to have the most control of them all, but it’s been a week of rage fits and breaking windows and using any excuse under the sun to pounce on a living, breathing creature and hurt them.

That week has also been surprisingly Stiles-free. Not that Derek misses him, or anything. No, it’s been a blessing not finding him slumped on the living room couch watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model or using Derek’s towel after taking a shower in his bathroom. It feels kind of like a vacation. A bloody, angry one. So not that different from the usual.

A yelp tears him from his thoughts. Cora’s got her fangs wrapped around Boyd’s arm as he still incredibly resists the shift, not even popping claws against the attack. 

“Cora!” Derek yells, running toward them. He wraps his arms around her to pry her off Boyd. 

She lets go of him to turn on Derek, snarling at him. 

“Cora”, he says again, gritting his teeth against the effort it takes to contain her. He flashes his eyes at her, but she’s too far gone, shifted to her beta form, eyes glowing yellow. He’s about to roar in her face when a muted, faraway sound catches her attention.

She snaps her head in its direction, then bounds to follow it. Derek shares a bewildered look with Boyd before leaping at her pursuit. As he races after her, the humming sound becomes more pronounced. Hiccuping motor. Stiles’ sorry excuse for a car. Derek runs faster, hoping to reach Cora before she runs the car off the road or something. God knows what’s going through her wolfed out brain right now.

He finally catches sight of Cora as the car screeches to a halt in front of her after a turn in the road. 

Derek comes to a stop a few steps away from her. Scott’s in the passenger seat of the Jeep, beaming. He doesn’t look worried in the slightest, so Derek guesses Cora doesn’t look murderous anymore. Or just the usual amount of murderous.

Stiles opens the driver’s side door, falling out of the car awkwardly. His face is blank, a corner of his mouth ticked up in his tiny, usual smirk. Derek is assaulted with unwelcome memories of the previous week: Stiles’ eyes reflecting the moonlight, his fingers curled over the whiskey bottle, the scent of misery stinking up the clearing from twenty feet away. Derek shakes his head against it.

Stiles makes eye contact with Cora, then Derek. Stiles’ scent punches him right in the solar plexus. There is the usual earthy sweetness, but it’s obscured by a powerful cloud of ozone. It smells like volatility, like the beginning of a storm, like power. Like magic. Derek’s jaw hits the floor. Stiles smirks at him knowingly.

Before Derek can articulate even a thought, Cora is pouncing on Stiles and they stumble to the ground. Derek takes a step toward them, but Scott holds him back with a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head serenely. Does he not care his so-called best friend is about to get beheaded?

Scott tugs on his shoulder again, making him stumble back a step. Derek gets the hint. They start walking back toward their usual clearing, letting Cora and Stiles battle it out on the ground. 

::

Derek pitts Scott against Boyd, making them practice control together under his watch. Boyd is showing great progress, but Scott keeps cracking up and stumbling to a stop in the middle of his run. Boyd soon follows Scott’s lead and before Derek can even finish rolling his eyes, they’re giggling like five year olds. Children.

Derek can hear it just as well as they can, if not better, but he was raised right. He’s been lectured on privacy enough times, he knows not to listen in on private moments, whatever they might be. So what if Cora and Stiles are having some sort of crazy heart to heart while they battle to the death in the forest? It’s not Derek’s place to judge. If really pressed, he’d say he hopes Cora wins and puts an end to Stilinski’s insufferabl- miserable life. Family first. That’s just good sense, is all.

Scott puffs behind his linked hands at a particularly high-pitched “ow, Cora,  _ no _ ! not the crotch you  _ monster _ !”, so Derek strides forward and smacks him on the back of the head mid-guffaw.

He flashes his eyes at a surprised Scott and a put-upon Boyd. “Concentrate!”

Scott points in the direction of the noise. “But, shouldn’t we be listening in?” he replies hotly. “What if they kill each other?”

Boyd raises his eyebrows at Derek, like he’s been asking himself the same question.

Derek crosses his arms and sighs through his nose to give himself time to ponder the question. At least when he looks pissed off the betas are less likely to question his authority. Or so Laura says. 

“They won’t”, he affirms, glaring at both boys. “At most she’ll maim him a little bit. Nothing major. Because Cora is in  _ control _ . Something you should both be learning right now”, he finishes, pointing at them menacingly. 

All that gets him is dubious grimaces. He glares and growls at them until they relent and go back to taking turns running at each other. They are mildly more focused than they were before, which leaves Derek just enough time to zone out. He’s got other things to worry about than his little sister possibly murdering her nuisance of a best friend. 

He’s been thinking of introducing Jen to the pack. It’s a little soon, but things between them are good, even though they haven’t managed to get together very often recently. And he’s tired of sneaking around, of carrying this baseless guilt, of feeling like he’s doing something wrong. He’s pretty sure other people don’t always feel vaguely guilty when they’re dating. 

Also, now that he’s told Stiles, it’s just a matter of time before he blabs the whole thing to Cora. Then the whole pack will be on his back about hiding it, and death is a sweet, sweet release compared to both of his sisters breathing down his neck interrogating him on his love life. 

Derek mentioned the possibility to Jen last night on the phone, as he snuck a few hours of peace and quiet doing overtime at the gallery. The looming probability of meeting his family. He knows from experience not to even dream about mentioning the “little furry clawy thing”, as his mom used to call it when they were little, until about a year in, but even just the prospect of getting together with his mom, dad and sister is a Big Deal to Derek. 

But the thing is, Jennifer’s reaction had been… not what he expected. Far from what he hoped. He knows meeting the family is a big relationship step, and he’s aware that, werewolfhood aside, the Hales have kind of a reputation in Beacon Hills. Big, wealthy family that’s been living on the edge of the forest for centuries. Scary lawyer mom, little sister known across town for her athletic excellence and bloodlust on the field. He’d expect slight trepidation, a little bit of fear from anyone. What Jen had given him felt more like calculated, feigned disinterest. Derek doesn’t know why she hid how she really felt about his proposition. He only ever expects and receives total honesty from her. The way she can’t even attempt to mask her emotions is one of her more charming traits to him. The whole thing has left Derek off-kilter and vaguely skittish.

He’s tired of driving himself insane thinking about it, honestly. A few paces from him, Scott and Boyd are starting to really get into it, focused and intense. They don’t need much of his supervision, so he lets his mind wander.

“I-  _ I’ve _ been a douchenozzle?  _ Me?” _ he can hear Stiles crying, indignant, his pronunciation slightly off, like he’s got something in his mouth like a pen or a tree branch.

“Eat dirt, Stilinski”, Cora hisses. There’s a slight lisp there, caused by her fangs, which means she’s just violent and brutal enough to be truly enjoying herself. Derek is surprised to find he has it in him to feel bad for Stiles.

“I’ve had to hear from your brother- ow, Cora, stop! - your _ brother _ , sourwolf supreme, that I had the Spark! Your  _ brother _ , Cora!”

So what if Cora breaks a limb or two? No big deal. Pain builds character, he’s been told. Cora’s reply is lost in the tussle, then Stiles bellows a scandalized: “You take that back!”

Cora shrieks with bloodlust and joy. Derek’s mouth stretches into a smile against his will. He can’t help it, it’s pack instinct, feeling Cora’s tension and misery lifting from their bond makes him feel like bouncing around and wagging his tail. He’s made peace with this part of being a wolf. He’s fine with it as long as no one ever finds out about it.

Cora and Stiles seem to have stopped wrestling. Derek can hear them heaving big, bizarrely synchronized breaths, heart rates slowly returning to something resembling normal. 

“You know I couldn’t tell you, right?” Cora huffs, voice low. “Some bullshit about it had to be the exact right moment. The way you found out was always going to be the way you found out”, she adds. 

It’s possibly the longest sentence Derek ever heard his sister say. She’s probably been ruminating on this a long time, trying to make it sound like an apology without actually apologizing. Derek has one of these moments of clarity where he remembers exactly why they’re related.

“I know”, Stiles pants, quiet, voice muffled. Cora’s probably lying half on top of him like he’s her very own blanket or something. For all the dog jokes, Cora’s more used to treating Stiles as a pet than as a friend. But who is Derek to judge? He doesn’t get any of these kids’ friendships anyway.

“I know it all, now. It’s just so  _ frustrating _ , dude.” The sounds of clothes rustling indicate a flailing motion. “So much angst could have been avoided.”

“Tell me about it”, Cora mumbles. There’s a pause that sounds suspiciously like hugging. 

Gross.


	8. all downhill from here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, have some action! 
> 
> next chapter will be up some time this weekend.

Stiles might be running for his life. Maybe. He’s almost definitely sure what he heard were in fact howls. From possibly not well-meaning were-somethings. Who might maybe want to eat him. So, he’s running. In the preserve, in the middle of the night. He tripped on a branch a couple minutes ago, lost his phone. He figures, his only way out of this is to run as fast as he can in the direction of the Hale house, hope Cora is so attuned to his heartbeat that she might be able to hear it going haywire from a good mile away.

Or, maybe, he’s totally imagining things and the dark, furry creatures snapping their teeth at his ankles are, like, fluffy, friendly were-bunnies or something. Totally harmless. He picks up the pace, lungs burning. He might drop from exhaustion soon. Possibly throw up. Even more plausible, he might run right into a tree. The night is pitch black around him, moonlight barely filtering through the thick woods.

He chances a look over his shoulder. Nothing. There’s nothing, just darkness and thicker darkness. But the hair at the nape of his neck is standing up and there’s this feeling in his gut, this pulsing fear that tells him to run, get away, run. He’s so out of breath he can barely stand upright, getting air to his lungs in agonized heaves. His legs are moving below him and he’s not even sure he’s the one controlling them.

He tries to feel for the spark, get it buzzing from his chest to his fingers, but even if he could concentrate enough to do that, the only thing Deaton has taught him so far is to ignite a candle and throw mountain ash. And he doesn’t have a candle. Or mountain ash. 

This is so typical. He’s fucking running for his life from dark creatures of the night, defenseless and exhausted. He can’t even scrounge up enough oxygen to yell for help. Cora is going to kill him if he ends up dead.

But this isn’t Stiles’ fault! He’s spent at least half of his life in the preserve at all hours of day and night, with Cora and Scott and on his own. The scariest thing that ever happened to him here is seeing Derek’s Murder eyebrows up close. He’s never had to run away from monsters before. There are no monsters in Beacon Hills. Except for that Kate bitch, but she’s been taken care of.

Still, his dad’s voice says in his head, once is all it takes. Nice input, dad.

The worst part (except for the maybe turning up dead in the very near future) is, he was just looking for that dumb purple flower that grows around the Nemeton. That special brand of wolfsbane that always abounds in werewolf territories. Aconitus whatthefuckus. Deaton said they might be able to do cool stuff with it. Well, he didn’t say “cool stuff”. He said “possibly dangerous, very volatile substances”. Stiles inferred the cool from that. 

A howl in the direction he’s running to makes the hair at the nape of his neck stand up. Dear God, he hopes it’s a friendly were-creature howling ahead. The Hales, he chants in his head, feet numb as they hit the squishy forest ground again and again. The Hales the Hales the Hales. Dear God, make Cora recognize the frantic beat of his heart. She must, truly, she  _ must _ have it on lockdown by now. They’ve only known each other, what? Twelve years? 

They’ve been best friends their whole entire life. They went through puberty together. Stiles had to handle her during her first full moons as a  _ teenage werewolf _ . And with everything they went through recently? She owes him. She so owes him. And that’s why she’s going to show up and save Stiles’ life in the nick of time. Any minute now.

A particularly voracious growl comes from right behind Stiles, level with his shins. He jerks violently away, losing his balance even as he keeps running. He topples over, ground hurtling up to meet his face with a resounding crack. Ouch. He scrambles away from the growling figure, crawling on his hands as he feels a trickle of blood wet his temple. He tries yelling, for Cora, for his dad, for any kind of goddam  _ help _ , when a black, hulking figure is suddenly upon him. He recoils, except the figure is not coming from behind him, and instead of trying to feast on his tender, teenage flesh, it is curling around him protectively, growling back in the direction of the scary beasts.

Thank God. Finally. He curls into a ball and tries to stay as close to the ground as possible, letting the warmth and breadth of the thick fur envelop him. Consecutive thuds inform him that the beast has been joined by others. He hears the tell-tale sounds of a fight, a whole lot of growling and snapping jaws and roars, muffled by the creature still covering him. He stays as still as he can, blood still dripping from his temple down the edge of his nose. It feels like he waits hours or possibly seconds before the fight is over. Nefarious were-creatures retreating with a last growl, the body over his finally moves.

Warm, wide hands grab him by the elbows, pull him up. They touch his arms, his chest, his face, feel his skull for the source of his injury, while Stiles blinks the darkness and dizziness away from his eyes. Voices press against his ears, familiar and worried.

“Stiles, are you alright? What the fuck happened?” a harsh voice forces itself through his skull.

Cora. Honestly, Stiles could cry. Maybe he is, a little.

“Cora, language”, a deeper voice snaps. Talia. Yay. The alpha is here. Stiles has possibly never been this happy to be in Talia’s presence. And, for his eighth birthday, she presented him with a tower of pancakes his whole size. So that’s saying something. “Stiles, honey, did they hurt you?” she asks.

“I can smell blood”, Cora presses, voice agitated. “Where is it coming from? Is he okay?” Her voice is coming from far away like he’s swaddled in cotton or something. It’s weird.

“He’s not answering”, another voice pipes in. Scott. He came to save him. Aw, best bro ever. “Did he hit his head?” he asks. Then, annoyed: “Derek, would you lay off him?”

“Yeah, Derek, stop hogging Stiles”, Cora growls. Scuffling sounds make it to Stiles’ very bleak consciousness. He shies away from them a second too late.

In the next breath, he’s being embraced around the shoulders by two strong arms, who squeeze roughly. Cora. Stiles leans into her touch, letting his head droop onto her shoulder. He’s okay. She came for him. They came for him.

He still can’t see a thing, but he knows he’s safe now. He heaves a big breath in, making his ears pop, four panting breaths clearly audible now. Cora squeezes him again, harder, and his knees give out from under him. Before he can hit the ground again, he’s being swept up in a bridal carry. He’d protest, but he’s not sure he would be able to right now.

He buries his face in the crook of a strong neck, and passes out. 


	9. teenagers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, the second part of this one sucks, but I am sick and out of fucks to give, sorry
> 
> next : stiles is bait (bc OF COURSE HE IS)

The first thing Stiles sees when he opens his eyes is the cracked plaster of the ceiling in Cora’s bedroom. It’s been like that since they were eleven. Jumping on the bed became a competition of who could jump the highest, which led to Cora bashing her skull on the ceiling. Of course.

Stiles has woken up in this bed billions of times at this point. Nothing unusual about it. Cora’s stretched over his right side, making it impossible for him to get out of bed and relieve his aching bladder. Nothing unusual about that either. What’s unusual is the dull pain pulsing from his right temple to the arch of his brow. And the fact that there’s a warm, wide hand pressed over his left hip. He jiggles his left side a bit to check and yeah. He’s covered in Hales. And Scott. 

Cora’s on her usual side, Scott on the other, sleeping on his side with his mouth open, drooling over Stiles’ shoulder. Gross. He’s got an arm and a leg strewn carelessly over Stiles’ stomach and legs, but that doesn’t make him the owner of the hand on his hip. Stiles lifts his head carefully, looks around the mess of limbs on the bed. Boyd is lying next to Scott, sleeping like the dead, literally. He’s on his back, hands clasped on his chest. 

On Cora’s other side is Derek, draped half on top of her, his arm extended, hand settled in the crook made by the jut of Stiles’ hip. His hand. On Stiles. He’s touching  _ skin _ . It’s  _ wrong _ . Why is he even here, seriously? The guy doesn’t give a fuck if Stiles gets eaten by evil were-bunnies. 

To complete the picture, a giant black creature is curled up in a tight ball at the foot of the bed, snoring lightly. Stiles is torn between the overwhelming sense of relief and pack and warmth that floods from the wolves to him, and grossed out by having this many people touching him in a bed. He’s still a bit loopy from the pain drain mojo the Hales no doubt treated him to last night, so he decides to let the weirdness go. Pack is weird, better to just get over it.

He burrows deeper into Cora’s pillow, tries to go back to sleep but, sensing the uptick of wakefulness in his heartbeat, one of the werewolves stirs, sending a ripple through the tangle of bodies on the bed and pushing Boyd off the edge. He falls to the ground like a log, waking everyone up with a start. For a single second, everything is frozen: Cora bites on Stiles’ shoulder with blunt, human teeth. Scott kicks his left leg out, catches one of Talia’s ear. Derek eyes snap open and find Stiles’ immediately, his hand clenches like a warm vice on Stiles’ hip.

Then Boyd’s startled, pissed off head pops back into Stiles’ line of sight and it’s like everything comes back into focus. Derek takes his hand off Siles and sits up quickly as Talia jumps off the bed, growling at Scott and flicking her ears. Cora doesn’t let go of Stiles. On the contrary, she burrows deeper into his shoulder, trying to ignore the commotion around her and go back to sleep. Scott’s sitting up too, ignoring Talia in favor of laughing hysterically at a furious Boyd, whose eyes are flashing dangerously.

“So. Everyone’s awake.”

All of their heads swivel comically to take in David leaning on the doorframe of the bedroom, in matching Garfield PJs and slippers Stiles and his dad got him a million Christmases ago, holding a big steaming cup of coffee and looking unbearably smug for this early in the morning.

Talia trotts over to him, huffs at his knees before disappearing into the hallway. Every other person in the room is still looking at David like a deer caught in headlights, except Cora, who’s still pretending she can fall back asleep in the middle of this mess. 

David cocks his head to the right, like he’s listening in on their heartbeats. He can’t, it’s just one of the many mannerisms he got from Talia and his kids. Live with werewolves long enough, you might not get their abilities, but you certainly get their instincts and behaviors. Case in point? Cora is trying her damned best to encircle the whole of Stiles’ body in a vice-like grip like he’s the Teddy Bear she desperately needs to go to sleep, and he’s barely even fazed anymore. 

“We’re having family breakfast in twenty minutes, kids”, David says, smiling benignly, like he’s this totally normal homemaker dad and not the scary human who can get into an argument with Talia Hale and  _ win _ . 

He points at the bed with the hand not holding his mug, casual as all hell. “Scott and Boyd, you’re setting the table. Stiles, you get Cora up and awake. Derek, you’re helping me make French toast.” With one last amused look toward them, he turns on his heels, and disappears the same way his wife did.

One by one, the wolves get up and grumble out of the room, leaving Stiles with the insurmountable task of getting Cora to open her damn eyes. As he’s trying to wrestle his arms free and flopping awkwardly on the bed to get her off him, he catches sight of Derek stopping before he exits the room, glancing back at him with a frown on his face. Stiles pauses his flailing, but Derek is already out of the room. Uh. What is that about? The look he sent Stiles seemed thoughtful, but it could just as well be constipation. 

Stiles takes a second to try and piece back the bits of yesterday he can remember. Did something happen to Derek? All he can remember is running in the dark and dizzying fear and the weight of fur protecting him and passing out in someone’s arms, like a damn damsel in distress or something. His temple pulses with pain as he concentrates on the hazy pictures coming to him. He gets lost deep in thought, trying to make sense of the whole night, when Cora spasms violently over him for no reason whatsoever, and knees him in the balls.

::

It takes longer than twenty minutes to get all of them vaguely presentable and sitting around the big table in the dining room they only ever use for fancy occasions or when one of the kids get detention and needs to be given the  “we expected more from you” speech. 

The last to show up are a limping Stiles and a strangely chipper Cora. They take seats next to Scott and Talia, and then everyone is free to dig into the mountainous piles of food Derek and his dad were able to put together in half an hour. It’s incredible what you can do with a full fridge and the promise of five werewolf appetites at the same table. 

For a while, there are only sounds of chewing and cutlery hitting plates. That’s the most perfect sound to Derek’s ears right now. He munches on a syrup-soaked French toast triangle, absently takes in Scott and Cora bickering over an enormous piece of bacon, Stiles accepting from David a mug of coffee the size of his head with big, grateful eyes and a wobbling chin. Is he crying? How ridiculous can this kid get? 

Stiles looks up from where he’s inhaling his coffee, makes direct eye contact with Derek. Derek swallows his barely-chewed bite of French toast, feels it scraping down his throat. He grimaces, still holding Stiles’ eye contact. After what feels like centuries (seriously, how long can humans stay without blinking?), Stiles looks down into his mug, one corner of his mouth lifted up in a tiny smile. Derek puts his fork down on his plate. He’s not hungry anymore, that last bite of toast was bad or something. He pushes things around on his plate, keeping his eyes firmly down, when his mom breaks the peace and quiet that Derek was seventy eight percent back to enjoying.

“Stiles, honey”, she starts, “your dad will be here soon to take your home.” She folds her hands on the table next to her empty plate. Uh oh. Serious talk time. “But before he gets there, we need to talk about last night.”

Scraping wood against the hardwood floor makes the wolves wince as Stiles pushes his chair out from under the table and slumps in it, looking at Talia. “Do we have to?” he pouts, still holding on to his fork, a piece of pancake hanging limply from it. “Can’t we just ignore it for today, pretend that everything is okay, and then tomorrow we reconvene and relive my worst nightmare in great detail? Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

Talia is smiling, but shaking her head all the same. “No chance, kid. We’re talking about it today.”

Stiles slumps further into his chair. Cora takes an impressive two-second break in gobbling down every type of meat available to her to pat him on the shoulder commiseratingly.

Talia makes eye contact with Stiles, and using a very calculated half-alpha half-mother-of-three voice, asks: “Did you have something to do with the creatures that attacked you last night?”

Stiles fish-mouths at her. 

“It’s ok if you have”, Talia tacks on, “We know you’re just starting out with magic. But we need to know where these things came from.” 

Stiles’ eyes look about ready to fall out of his face, and it seems he’s stopped breathing. Someone should probably do something about that. Derek makes eye contact with Cora, gives her a frown and a meaningful jerk of the head toward Stiles. All he gets in return is an eyeroll. Honestly. Teenagers. He doesn’t know how his mom and dad do it.

Stiles flails back to life, shaking his hands in front of him like he’s having a seizure or something. Scott winces away from his flying arms. “Did  _ I _ \-  _ me _ ?” he all but shrieks. Derek resists the urge to cover his ears.

“I can barely ignite a candle!” he yells, eyes still big and disbelieving. “You think I, what? Summoned evil creatures of the dark to like, try and eat me?” He holds out both hands toward Talia, as if saying “there you have it”. 

Talia nods slowly, looking at Derek’s dad for a second before looking back at Stiles. “Honestly, Stiles, I would have preferred it if it had just been a clandestine magic experiment turned wrong. It would have made my job much easier. If we don’t know where these magic creatures come from, we-”

“Are we sure those- the  _ things _ were created by magic?” Stiles interrupts Talia. “Can’t they just be were-somethings?” 

Talia looks at Derek, Cora, Scott and Boyd in askance. They all shake their heads quickly.

“Those… things dissolved into the night almost instantly when we got there. We couldn’t fight them, they were made of nothing. They were definitely not shifters. Magic was involved.”

A somber silence descends on the dinner table, the only sound Cora chewing a last bit of stray french toast. They all look at each other in bewilderment. 

“I can hit the books again, see what I can find?” Stiles offers hesitantly. 

Talia smiles at him, nods. She reaches for David’s hand and squeezes. “I’ll call Chris. We’ll pull our resources together.” She glances at David. “You’ll talk to John?” 

Derek’s dad nods serenely. He turns a piercing stare on them all. “In the meantime, kids, it goes without saying: no meandering alone in the woods at night.” He fixes Derek with a look. “That means you too, Derek and Stiles.”

Derek looks at his dad in horror as Stiles lets his head thump on the table. 

“Why would you? Why?” Stiles whines as Talia and David roll their eyes in perfect unison.


	10. buried a lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya, I'm back!!! sorry for the wait.  
> the next chapter will be up later today.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me!

“How about Saturday?” 

There a non-committal hum over the buzzing motor at the other end of the line. Derek grits his teeth.

“Jen?” he prompts. Not for the first time since she picked up the phone.

“I don’t know, honey. I’m sorry. I might not be back till Sunday. You know how the job gets.” 

Jen’s been called away for work a lot more these past few weeks. Derek is determined not to read anything into it. Hence, why he’s stubbornly trying to arrange a meeting between Jen and his parents. They could use a break from all the research. 

“Yeah, I guess”, he concedes. She was laid off a few months ago, and she’s taken the shift to self-employment pretty hard. Apparently, she loved the firm she used to work at. Except for that, he’s pretty fuzzy on what she does for a living.

“Even though I’m not exactly sure what you actually do”, he points out pettily. 

A static sigh answers him. “Honey”, she says, annoyed, “you know my job. I’m a health and wellness consultant.”

“I don’t know what that  _ means _ ”, Derek grits out, working himself into anger. He closes his eyes, breathes through his nose. “You know, if I did, it would be much easier for me when I explain it to my parents”, he pushes.

The phone goes silent. Derek checks the call hasn’t disconnected. “What's the matter with you today?” Jen asks, concerned. “You seem off.” 

Derek scratches at his forehead. He’s being an asshole, isn’t he? He never knows where the limit is when he pushes. “I’m sorry, Jen”, he mumbles into the receiver. “I’m just- stressed out. There’s been a- family issue. My mom’s working on it but it’s been- challenging, I-” Derek wishes he could punch something right now. He settles for his thigh.

“Oh honey, don’t worry about it”, Jen answers. “I’m sure your mom will resolve it quickly. You said she’s a lawyer?” 

Derek nods, realizes she can’t see him. “Yes.”

“It’s going to be alright”, Jennifer tells him, warm. “You’re so sweet to be worried about your family, hon. You’re a good person.” 

Derek rolls his eyes. She doesn’t know who he really is. If she did, she might run for the hills. 

Their phone call ends quickly after that. Derek packs up his things and locks up the gallery, hurrying up to his car. It’s been ten days since the attack in the woods. Ten days of his house full of Stilinskis and Argents and big debates in the living room and the library and the kitchen and every communal space of the house. It’s crowded and loud and all of them in their collective craziness haven’t been able to find a single thing.

Not a clue, not a theory, nothing. Deaton’s been around much more than Derek can stand, hushing conversations as soon as someone other than his mom and dad are in immediate vicinity, letting his ozone-and-dog-piss scent permeate Derek’s favorite chair in the library. 

The Sheriff usually comes by at the end of a shift, to catch a quick dinner with them or to get a cup of coffee before he crashes home after a night shift. Stiles is basically living at the Hale house, sleeping in Cora’s bedroom and using every hour he’s not in class to carry huge leather-bound books around and slump anywhere to peruse them. Seriously. Derek didn’t even know they had books like these in the library. David’s taken it upon himself to hunt for stray mugs of coffee Stiles leaves behind in the weirdest places. Windowsills. The shower. The  _ roof _ . Kid’s so weird, no wonder he gets along so well with Cora.

The hardest to deal with for Derek, is Chris Argent. He’s an ally, sure, and he’s been a good friend of his parents ever since he moved to Beacon Hills, but Derek always feels awkward and vaguely guilty when he’s a around. He can’t help it. He remembers the first time he saw him, sitting at the dinner table with his parents, looking grim and tired. Derek was sixteen, and in love. 

And Kate would have burnt their house down with all of them inside if Chris had not come forward and uncovered her plan to the Hales, risking his whole family’s heritage in the process. In the months that followed, Argent spent every waking minute in the library with Derek’s mom, working on the trial case that would lock up his father and sister and all of their known associates for life. Derek spent every waking minute of these months holed up under Laura’s bed or up in a tree somewhere in the preserve. 

Even though Chris and his family have spent every major holiday with the Hales since then, Derek has never been able to grow out of the awkwardness. He knows Scott’s been dating his daughter, Allison, basically since they moved to town, but there’s just something in that girl, a glint in her eyes that scream of the Argent crazy. Derek’s learned to be watchful of the people he lets into his life.

When he gets to the house, the front yard is already full of cars. He jumps out of the Camaro and runs to the house, barges into the living room with only seconds to spare. His mom hates it when they’re late to pack meetings. 

The living room is bustling with people sitting on every possible surface. Stiles and Derek’s dad are sitting on the floor, surrounded by books, old and new, open on pages displaying text in an array of languages Derek can barely read. His mom, the Sheriff and Chris are sitting on the couch, Deaton facing them on the chair Derek likes. He squeezes himself on the loveseat next to Cora, receives a grunt of annoyance in acknowledgment. There’s nothing better than family. 

Boyd and Scott come in from the kitchen, arms loaded with snacks. They distribute them unevenly across the room, then settle on the floor next to Stiles. Stiles makes grabby hands toward a big bag of Cheetos, but David tsss’es at him, reminds him he’s not allowed food this close to the books. Stiles makes a truly pathetic face, looking at Cora stuffing her mouth with Doritos. He opens his mouth to protest when Talia clears her throat and silence descends upon the room like magic. The perks of alphaness, Derek thinks even as instinct has him sitting up straighter, leaning toward his mom to listen to her every word.

“Let’s dive right in”, she says, all business. “As you all know, we haven’t been able to find anything on the, uhm- creatures that attacked Stiles a week and a half ago. All we know for sure at this point is that they are magic. They could have been created by someone who can manipulate magic”, she adds with a quick glance at Stiles, whose back instantly stiffens, “or they could be magical manifestations of some sort of force - benign or evil, there’s no way to know.”

“Evil, definitely evil”, Stiles mumbles, forgetting for a second he’s in a room full of werewolves with supernatural hearing abilities. Derek frowns at him.

Talia goes on as if nobody had spoken. “The creatures haven’t manifested themselves since that night, but we can’t take the risk of them showing themselves or attacking unsuspecting people. So.” She stops talking abruptly, takes a second to send a searching look to the adults in the room. “We must take action, even though it is far from ideal to go in blind like this.” 

She looks at Stiles, gaze heavy with command and meaning. “We want to create an ambush.”

Stiles is looking back at her, books forgotten in front of him. 

“Use me as bait”, he says, like he came naturally to the same conclusion. Talia hasn’t finished nodding that, in a flurry of movement, Cora has Stiles pinned to the floor beneath her, squawking. She’s physically covering him, growling in her mom’s direction. Talia just frowns at her, not too bothered by this display of animosity. She knows it’s just Cora for “don’t break my stuff.” 

The room has exploded with noise, Scott violently protesting, Stiles’ pathetic cries of “Cora, get off me!” and Deaton trying to get people’s attention by clearing his throat all mysteriously and shit. Derek is… stunned. He looks down at his hands on his knees, finds that he ripped holes on his jeans with his claws. Fuck. Another pair ruined. 

After a while, the hysteria recedes. Stiles is able to sit up with minimal fuss, even though Cora keeps herself situated awkwardly on his lap, blocking access to him with her own body. They all turn to look at a patiently waiting Deaton.

“We thought we would recreate to circumstances in which the creatures first appeared, but”, he continues through Cora’s and Scott’s erupting growls, “in a controlled perimeter, with the pack standing by. We can use concealing charms to hide the werewolves and humans’ presence, and intervene the second something goes wrong, provided it does.”

“Oh, it will!” Scott interrupts hotly. “This is insane! You guys are  _ adults _ ! You are supposed to come up with the  _ sensible _ plans!” 

He’s on his knees behind Stiles, his arms around his best friend’s torso, almost holding him in a choke hold. Derek wants to point out how ridiculous they are, trying to protect Stiles from their parents’ ridiculous plan by smothering him between their bodies, but if he’s honest with himself, he’d feel better if he could be patting Stiles’ knee right now. He squashes that stupid feeling right down.

Stiles wheezes and Scott releases his hold self consciously with a mumbled “sorry bro” Stiles waves at dismissively. He clears his throat. 

“I think it’s a stupid plan, yeah”, he addresses the room at large. “But it’s kind of the only plan we’ve got.” He looks at Talia and at his dad, finds them looking back. “Besides”, he smiles crookedly, “I can use this cool new trick Deaton showed me.” He snaps his fingers and a tiny ball of fires erupts in the middle of his palm. He beams at the pack.

Entire situation forgotten, Scott stares at the fire with wide eyes. “Dude.  _ Cool _ .”

Stiles smiles at him. “Yeah dude. The coolest.”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“Anyway”, Talia interrupts, a hint of sarcasm making it to her alpha voice. “Can we agree to work on this plan together, as a pack?”

Stiles nods readily, ball of fire vanishing. He snakes an arm around a pouting Cora, punches Scott’s shoulder on his other side. “C’mon bros. I’ll be fine. And I know you guys will have my back if anything happens.”

Cora grunts. 

“Of course, bro”, Scott says. “We’re brothers.” He pulls Stiles in a hug.

Derek shakes his head as the adults look on with fondness. God, they’re going to be here all night.


	11. i'm not okay (i promise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter in one day!  
> that's all for today folks, next chapter up.... I don't know when. hopefully soon. yay.
> 
> thanks for reading/kudosing/commenting. you're good peeps.

It all goes to shit, of course. One second Stiles is hanging out "alone" in the forest at midnight, trying to look innocent while concentrating on the spell Deaton taught him last night for this purpose. It involves mistletoe and "believing the evil will reveal itself" or whatever the fuck. Pretty hard to practise when the only evil in the animal clinic is that huge tabby cat that keeps snagging her claws in Stiles' favorite t-shirts. And possibly Deaton. 

So, yeah. One second he's there doing his thing hoping very hard that the cloaking device Deaton fashioned for the Hales a) is actually working and b) will not prevent them from ultimately saving his ass, when everything goes dark (well, dark-er than it already was: it _ is  _ midnight in the woods) and Stiles starts choking on nothing. He's heaving, trying to get air into his lungs, but it feels like all the air's been sucked out. He’s scratching at his throat trying not to think of that awful scene in Game of Thrones with the evil kid turning blue, darkness growing solid around him, surrounding him, boxing him in. 

Shit shit shit shit shit. Where the fuck are the Hales? Do they even know something is wrong? He can't scream. He can't breathe. He tries to reach for the vial of mistletoe in his pants pockets, thinking "evil go away evil go away evil go away" as a foreign force squeezes his body, grinds his bones together.

A feral roar makes it to his consciousness. A gasp of air makes it to his throat. A disturbance in the force. With a flick of the wrist he throws the vial as far away from his body as he can, willing this magic bullshit to work. 

And it does. Holy hell, it does. Stiles is magic. He has the Spark. Holy fucking hell.

So what, sue him, the novelty hasn't worn off yet. And you have to admit, it's pretty cool.

He collapses to the ground, suddenly free, rasps oxygen in and out in great big gulps. Footfalls around him and Cora's hands on his back, soothing and sucking the pain out. A few seconds later he's coherent enough to take in the scene unfolding before him. 

The whole pack is standing protectively over him in a semi-circle. Talia, as a giant black wolf, holds a dark form between her scary, pointy teeth. Stiles squints. It’s not a form, it’s a woman, held by the neck in Talia’s jaw. Black tendrils of whatever are coming out of her fingers and mouth and eyes and.. hair??? Also, Stiles doesn’t want to judge or anything, but she seems, uhm. Horribly deformed?? Deep gouges run down the whole length of her face and neck, it’s pretty hard to look at. Stiles squints again. No wait, scratch that. She’s gorgeous, big brown eyes staring up at Stiles with heat and… hatred? He doesn’t even know this woman! How can she hate him already?

The werewolves are closing in around her, Talia still holding the woman securely between her fangs, growling all around. Chris Argent is advancing too, gun pointed squarely at her forehead.

A voice breaks through the growling. “Jennifer?”

Stiles turns around on weak knees. It’s- yep. It’s Derek who spoke. Shifted back to human, missing a shirt, tight ripped jeans and scuffed boots, regular Derek Hale, surly jumper of stairs, face twisted in something that resembles anguish, addressing the hot slash disfigured woman his mom holds in her humongous jaws. 

“Jennifer?” he repeats, voice wavering at the end.

There’s an awkward moment when nobody really knows what to do. The betas shift back but keep their fighting stances, looking at each other. Derek seems stuck in place, brows drawn like he’s in pain, looking fixedly at the woman. Stiles shivers. This night is cold and weird and uncomfortable. 

After what feels like an eternity, Talia shifts her hold on the woman, whose appearance keeps flicking from hideous to attractive like a glitch in a hologram. One second Talia’s a hulking wolf holding prey in her mouth, the other she’s human, standing naked in the middle of the clearing, claws firmly gripped around the strange woman’s throat. She stares right through her with her gleaming red eyes. The woman’s face is distorted by a sneer.

“Who are you?” Talia asks.

Sneer firmly in place, the woman takes her time looking back at her. The werewolves shift with unease around them. Stiles shivers again.

“I fucking hate werewolves”, the woman replies, as if to herself.

Okay. Stiles must admit, even though she probably just tried to kill him, he has a grudging respect for the attitude. Woman: 1, Talia: 0.

Talia not-so-subtly adjusts her grip so her sharpest claws rest against the woman’s jugular. 

Fine. Woman: 1, Talia: 1, then.

Talia turns her head to look at her son, still stuck in place with the weirdest look on his face. Stiles doesn’t know why, but it’s kind of hard to look at Derek right now. 

“Derek”, Talia calls. “Who is she?”

Derek looks at his mom, then at the woman, then back at his mom. He doesn’t say anything. He keeps shifting back and forth between beta and human forms, like he’s glitching too. David moves around the line of werewolves until her can reach his son, puts his hand on Derek’s back, above the triskele tattoo. Derek stays human.

The woman, hanging limply from Talia’s hand, looks at the exchange with a combination of great interest and amusement. Stiles is torn between appreciation for her attitude and genuine fear.

“Derek”, Talia calls again, lower. “Who is she?”

“Jennifer”, Derek answers, eyes fixed on the woman’s face, voice broken. “I was- we’ve been-”, he’s in beta form again, “seeing each other”, he trails off, eyes trained to the ground.

A gasp runs through the wolves. Stiles holds his breath. A flash of memory makes it to his consciousness. A full moon. The wet, mushy ground of the forest. That name. Jennifer... Warmth, and a bitter taste in his mouth. He can’t quite place it, but he knows it’s not a dream. He would never be able to dream that crinkle of a smile on the corner of Derek’s eye. 

The woman - Jennifer -  sneers again, but this time her face is the badly mutilated one, pieces of flesh hanging limply from her cheekbones. Gross.

“My name isn’t Jennifer”, she spits at Talia, holding her head as proudly as she can manage while Talia’s holding on to her. “It’s Julia.”

In the silence that follows, Deaton’s placid voice rings loud. “You’re Julia Baccari”, he says, tone wondering. He steps into the circle of wolves, closer to Talia. “I thought you were dead.”

Okay, what the hell is happening? 

Deaton knows this woman, and Derek dated her, and she tried to kill Stiles, and the night is really, really,  _ really _ cold. Stiles wants to call a time-out and wrap himself in a blanket and get coffee and hug his dad and hold Cora’s hand for support and talk this out with the pack until it all makes sense and deal with the the weird venomous evil magic woman later. He also kind of wants to watch Talia and Deaton torture her until she spills everything she knows. 

He almost gets his wish. His dad finds him and claps a warm, firm hand on his shoulder, anchoring him and his thoughts in place, just as Chris Argent steps in turn into the circle of wolves, places the barrel of his hun on the woman’s temple, and clicks the safety off. The woman smiles at them all condescendingly. The wolves converge on Derek, forming a line of protection behind him. He still hasn’t moved. 

“Who is she?” Talia asks once more, this time directed at Deaton. 

He steeples his fingers together in front of him like he’s about to give a lecture. Stiles is overcome with a white hot wave of rage for a second, but he gets over it. Other stuff is happening, after all. Life-threatening stuff. 

“Julia Baccari”, Deaton repeats, looking unflinchingly at the woman. “Emissary of a werewolf pack up North. They were… a bit too interested in power, all of them. At her alpha’s urging, she tried black magic, but it backfired and killed two of the betas, including her lover, Khali. The alpha went crazy and killed all of his remaining betas as well as the emissary.” He looks to Talia. “At least that’s what the stories I’ve heard told.”

The woman - Jennifer, Julia, whatever - looks at Deaton, still smiling, eyes cold. She makes a limp “tadaaa” gesture with her hands. “The stories lied. I survived.”

Deaton nods like he’s conceding a point in a theoretical argument. “Evidently.”

Talia apparently has had enough of this circus. She squeezes her hand around the woman’s throat. “What are you doing here? What do you want with my son, emissary?”

“Darach”, Deatons interrupts her. He looks at the woman from top to bottom, some degree of disgust in his voice. “When an emissary messes with magic they’re not supposed to have access to, they can never go back to using magic in benevolent ways. They become Darachs, instruments of the evil forces of magic.”

The chill running down Stiles’ spine has nothing to do with the cold. It’s like he can feel his Spark rebelling against Deaton’s words, reaffirming itself as a force of good, an integral part of his body. Stiles clenches his fists 

“What do you want with my pack, Darach?” Talia’s voice is barely more than a growl this time. The grip she has on the woman’s throat is so tight, she should be unable to speak or even breathe, but she’s still smiling like this all is sooo entertaining to her. Honestly, she scares the bejeezus out of Stiles. So it’s entirely normal that when she directs her mocking gaze at him, he jumps a little. 

“This one’s a real pain in my ass. He ruined everything for me”, she says, conversationally. “Honestly, I don’t see why you keep him around”, she glances at Talia. She’s wearing her untainted face, dark brown eyes and pointed nose, lush hair framing her beautiful face. She’s the most horrifying thing Stiles has ever seen.

Chris presses the gun more firmly to her temple, making her head bend a little. “Talk”, he orders.

She smiles wider. “Fine, hot stuff, no need to get this aggressive.” She sighs, looking around, like she’s about to share a good bit of story. Stiles wishes Talia would hurry up and sink her claws into her throat already. 

“My alpha did try to kill me after the accident with the spell. I had just lost the love of my life because of him and that disgusting  _ monster _ , he-” She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. “Anyway. He got very close to succeeding, but I survived.”She smiles again, showing a row of perfect white teeth, then perfectly bare gums framed by shredded lips. “I survived, and I hid, and I built my strength back up. It took me years, but I came for him. And I just- snapped his neck”, she says, smug, delighted. The hand of Stiles’ shoulder squeezes. Stiles’ hand comes up, finds his dad’s, squeezes back.

“I  _ am _ a Darach”, she directs at Deaton, all mirth forgotten. “And you will never know that kind of power, Alan Deaton.” Deaton, to his credit, stays as impassive as a stone. That dude wouldn’t be rattled by an anaconda coming out of the woods and biting him in the dick.

“But - and that’s where the story gets good”, she says in a conspiratorial tone like she’s being interviewed on a late night show, “Darachs do need to feed off shifters’ energy to maintain power too, just like emissaries.” She lets out a giggle that send the wolves around her growling. Stiles is pretty sure Derek stopped breathing a while ago. 

“So I took on this appearance and this stupid name and tried to find a pack with a powerful alpha and a gullible beta.” She pauses, as if for dramatic effect. Chris Argent’s finger is clenched tight around the trigger of his gun. “So I could sleep my way into the pack, become their emissary. And, after a few years, when I’d sucked all of the energy out of them, I could put them down like the mindless beasts they are.” She shouts over the snarling wolves. “But then this one came around with his little Spark”, she spits, looking at Stiles, “and threatened my whole plan.”

With a flick of her free hand, Talia slaps the Darach, nearly snapping her neck. Blood trickles from her mouth as she smiles at Talia. 

“How much is it gonna take to get you to snap, uh, Alpha?”

Preventing Talia from answering, Chris asks through gritted teeth. “So you tried to kill the kid?”

Still looking fixedly at Talia, blood now running from her nose and mouth, she answers: “Would’ve succeeded too, if your stupid betas weren’t so attuned to his heartbeat.” She glances at Stiles. “Might still succeed tonight, depending on how things go.” 

Talia’s sharp claws gleam in the moonlight right as she’s about to sink them into the Darach’s throat. 

“Stop.”

David steps around Derek, toward his wife. Everyone  turns to look at him. David nods at Deaton. “Do it.”

Deaton nods back. With practiced ease, he throws a tight ring of mountain ash around the Darach as Talia and Chris step back from her. She clearly wasn’t expecting this and tries to push back against the barrier, getting zapped back into place. 

She utters a string of curse words Stiles has never heard before as Talia barely spares her a glance before walking to the cluster of her betas and physically pulling a frozen Derek into her embrace. It physically pains Stiles to see Derek melt into his mom’s arms, shivers running through him, so he averts his eyes back to the now disfigured woman fighting against her magic prison. 

Deaton and Chris pace around her, checking the mountain ash is holding. She’s yelling obscenities, looking at all of them. Stiles steps out of his dad’s grip, closer to her. 

He wants to- he doesn’t know. He can still feel Derek unraveling in the embrace of his mom even though he has his back turned from them. He wants to hurt her, for hurting him. For hurting them. His pack. He’s their emissary, and she tried to take what’s his. He wants her to suffer. 

She looks at him as he approaches, loathing in her eyes. Stiles send it right back. “What are we going to do about her?” he asks Deaton without detaching his eyes from hers. 

Deaton appraises him silently. “We’ll have to do some research, but I read somewhere you can suck the power out of a Darach”, he says in a detached tone. Only because he’s been spending more and more time with the man, can Stiles detect a hint of satisfaction in there. “Then, well…” he looks over his shoulder, “it’s up to the alpha to decide.”

As if summoned by his words, Talia comes over to them, practically dragging Derek with her, the rest of the pack following in close ranks. She looks at the woman, cold loathing and powerful, Derek stoic and lifeless behind her. “Give me one good reason not to kill you, after what you did to my son.” 

Jennifer- Julia, whatever -  looks at her, expressionless. “What is he, a pup?” she taunts.

Derek grips his mother’s hand, preventing her from swiping at the woman’s throat. There’s no doubt in Stiles’ mind that her power and rage would enable her to go right through Deaton’s mountain ash. Derek speaks up, voice surprisingly strong. “Why did you choose me?” he asks, looking steadily into the Darach’s eyes. “Why did you make me care about you?”

She laughs, a throaty, chilling thing that never seems to end. Her entire body leans as close to the barrier as is physically possible, like she’s ready to jump out and claw Derek’s face off. 

“Oh please,  _ honey _ . It’s not like you even  _ cared _ about me.” She flips her hair off her shoulder, forgetting that in her disfigured form she’s essentially bald. “We both know you’re all over that spastic  _ kid  _ anyway.” She looks at Stiles and winks at him. Stiles’ jaw hits the floor. Purely on instinct, he snaps his fingers and pushes the little ball of fire at the mountain ash barrier, lighting it up. The woman steps back, screeching. 

In the same second, Derek disengages from the grip of his alpha and the tight cluster of his pack around him. With a deep groan of pain, he shifts into wolf form and runs, disappearing into the night. Stiles looks away from the flames dancing barely out of reach of the Darach’s body, her deformed face distorted with fear for the first time since they caught her. He ignores his dad calling his name, and runs after the wolf.


	12. a little less sixteen candles a little more touch me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE IT IS!!!!! yay!!! just one more chapter to go!!! how happy are we? very.
> 
> THANK YOU so much to the regular commenters and kudosers. you guys make my day every time. as usual, hearts upon you and your family.

Run, the wolf says. Run, run as far as you can, as fast as you can, until you can’t run anymore. That’s all the wolf can do. Run, hunt, fight, kill, protect. That’s what the wolf is made for.

He runs through the forest, paws on leaves, guided by the pull of the moon. Behind him, footfalls, tree branches snapping, his human name being called. Something, someone not wolf is following him. He keeps running.

The not wolf follows too, he can hear it traipsing loudly through the woods. He can pick up traces of its scent, warm and earthy. It smells like pack, like wolf. The scent is sweet. Like mate. 

The wolf falters in his step. You don’t run away from pack. He whines, lost, fighting against the will to run away. This scent, this voice, this heartbeat. It’s safe. It’s friend. It’s good.

The wolf feels the pull of the moon shifting inside him. Pain runs through his spine, and then he’s on two legs again, regaining his full range of motion and vision and thought. 

He remembers. Jennifer. Julia. His family, his pack, the danger. Kate. Humiliation and guilt. Guilt running through him like adrenaline, pulsing through every part of his body, the shame of his existence. It happened to him.  _ Again _ .

He can’t handle this, the pain, the shame of his constant failures. He’s not- good. He doesn’t want to feel, to be a person right now. He tries to feel for the pull of the moon again, let himself be animal and run on instinct, escape from himself for however long he can, but-

“Derek, c’mon!” Stiles yells from a few yards away. His breath is labored, footsteps irregular, like he’s been running after him a while. “I don’t have werewolf legs!” 

Derek stays human.

A few seconds later, Stiles barrels right into him, their bodies slamming together as Stiles runs blindly through the forest. Moron. He could have hurt himself.

Derek grips Stiles’ forearms, makes sure he stays upright as he keeps tripping on his own feet. “Stiles! Hey, it’s me.” Stiles hands grip back, his heart rate settles. 

“Derek! Hey, finally!” he says through panting breaths. He pats blindly at Derek’s chest, then abruptly pulls away. “Wow, you’re- uh. Dude, you’re naked.”

Derek rolls his eyes. Stiles should be used to this by now. Shifters need to shift, clothing is always optional in packs. There’s very little room for modesty around wolves.

“You’ve seen me naked before, Stiles”, Derek points out. He doesn’t really know why he does.

Derek can see just fine in the dark of the woods, the minute details of Stiles’ expression, his disheveled state and the tiny pieces of tree bark that attached themselves to his clothes and hair. He can see the movement of Stiles’ throat as he gulps loudly, steps back minutely.

“Yes, but uhm”, Stiles says. He clears his throat. “We weren’t- alone. In the woods. In the dark, uhm.” He starts gesticulating out of his hoodie. “Here, take this.”

Derek wants to scoff and refuse the sweater he’s offered. He’s a werewolf, he doesn’t get cold. Nudity is nothing to be ashamed of. But it carries Stiles’ scent, and the warmth of his body. Derek shrugs it on. It’s tight around the arms, but it’ll do. Stiles looks at him as he zips it up, his human eyes having adjusted to the darkness around them. He gulps again. 

Silence grows thick around them. Suddenly, Derek can’t remember why he didn’t run away from Stiles. It seems stupid to be here, together in the middle of the woods, a few hours away from dawn. It seems like the last place he’d like to be. And yet…

Stiles’ eyes snap to his, wide and heavy with intent. “Derek”, he says. Then he stops. Swallows. Paces a few steps back and forth. Stops, looks back at Derek. Swallows again. “I-” he starts, trails off. Sighs.

Derek backs up a step or two, thinks about running away again. Stiles stops him with a flailing motion.

“Don’t, please!” he calls, imploring. “My car keys are in my hoodie”, he adds lamely.

Derek wants to die. Right here right now.

::

Stiles wants to die. Right here right now.

He feels so goddam awkward, standing here in the cold dark night, again, in the middle of the woods, again, talking to Derek Hale,  _ again _ . Not just Derek hale, though. A half naked one. And not the usual half, even. 

He almost got killed tonight, learned a lot of possibly traumatizing, brand new information, and also maybe set fire to a woman? And now he’s here, trying to… pour his heart out, maybe, possibly, definitely. But he doesn’t know how. He’s never done that before. There’s no Scott to tell him to follow his heart or whatever romantic platitude. There’s no Cora to beat him into shape. He’s gotta do this, alone.

He takes a deep breath, squeezes his eyes shut for a second, sneaks a quick peek to make sure Derek hasn’t run away after all. He hasn’t. He’s still standing there, looking profoundly lost and uncomfortable. Stiles lets his breath leave him in a whoosh.

“I like you”, he gets out quickly, then braces for impact. None comes. He squints one eye open. Derek is looking at him, uncomprehending. 

Did he say it out loud? He thinks he did. “I like you”, he repeats, just to make sure.

Derek frowns. Oh god, that’s not good. He crosses his arms. Ugh. Even worse, he cocks his head to the side and sighs. Ouch. 

“Stiles”, Derek says, tired.

Between fight or flight, Stiles’ reptilian brain has never been able to resist the stupider option, even when he’s pretty sure he’s not going to make it. That’s why he’s best friends with Cora, because he can match her natural bloodlust with hotheaded bravery, time and time again.

So of course this time again, even though he knows he should just shut up and find his dad and go home and leave Derek alone, he goes for the confrontation with the lost, angry, sad werewolf. That’s what he  _ does _ .

“What? Dude, I’m just- Listen”, he says, taking big steps and getting right in Derek’s face, who recoils a little. “I know this has been a- crazy, in-fucking-sane night, for you and me both. There’s, like, so much to unpack there.” He flails an arm in the direction he thinks they just came from. Derek keeps frowning and clenching his jaw and crossing his arms.

“But, I’m saying: forget about the crazy bitch. Just for one minute don’t be your usual tortured weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders self and  _ forget about the homicidal maniac _ . I’m pretty sure I turned her into barbecue anyway.” Derek backs up a step, Stiles advances one. He won’t let this go. He can’t, at this point. He’s locked and loaded.

“I know you, okay. And I - me, Stiles”, he slaps his own chest for some reason, “I like you, like,  _ like _ like you, eyebrows and all, so.” He runs out of steam at this precise moment. He takes in the situation they’re in: dark forest, cold night, half naked hurt werewolf backed up against a tree, arms crossed, Stiles barely a foot away from him. Suddenly he can’t remember what the point to this was. He’s really, really tired.

“Uhm. I guess if you… y’know. Well, then. That’s uh- you know.” He backs up a step, crosses his own arms, and looks at the floor.

Derek unclenches his jaw. His voice is hoarse, tired, pained. “Stiles, I’m-”

A jolt of adrenaline goes through Stiles. He remembers why he’s here, right now. Why he ran after the wolf in the dark, scary forest. Why this is happening, and why it matters. Derek once snatched him away from the void and gave his life a new meaning, a new purpose. Maybe he’s here to return the favor. Maybe he can do this. As an emissary, as a person with real feelings. Maybe he can do this.

“Derek!” he yells, making them both jump a little with the force of it. He extends his arm toward him, palms up. “It is not on you, okay?”, he says, injecting as much feeling into it as he’s able to.

He starts pacing, because this desperate energy leaking from him needs another outlet than his words. “You got manipulated  _ twice _ by psychos, sure. That’s just- incredibly shit luck.” He looks at Derek, who’s still leaning against a tree, arms crossed and staring fixedly above Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles almost turns around to check the evil bitch is not coming back for him or something, but no. That’s just Derek being Derek. And he has a point to get across.

“Dude, all this, it’s also just… shifter shenanigans.” Derek’ head turns slightly more toward him. He frowns harder. Stiles throws a hand toward him, inches away from slapping at his chest. “How many times did your family escape from certain death by the skin of their teeth by now?” he asks. It’s rhetorical, and Derek seems to get this, because he doesn’t answer, just somehow keeps frowning harder and harder. Stiles spares a second to worry that he will never be able to un-rumple his face. 

“How many times were you directly involved in the threat, compared to, say, Laura or your mom or, even  _ me _ ?” he asks again. “Remember that time with the ghoul?”

Stiles doesn’t like to think about the ghoul. Cora and he had disrupted its nest play-hunting in the forest, and then Stiles had somehow offended it mortally by commenting on the size of its nose, which resulted in the ghoul kidnapping David for five days until Talia and the pack found them and put an end to its miserable life. Stiles was barely fourteen.

Stiles lets Derek ponder on that. He’s got the arguments, he’s got the fire. He’s got the beat he’s got the beat he’s got the beat. Clearly his brain is a bag of rats.

But Derek pushes one shoulder off the tree, shaking his head in doubt. Stiles can’t have that.

“No, just- listen!” he says frantically. It feels like that’s all he’s been saying, begging Derek to listen to him, hear what he’s saying, understand how he feels, what he sees. He doesn’t know what else to do. 

“Listen to me, Derek”, he repeats, making direct eye contact. “This is not on you. You are not bad, or weak, or a liability. I know you. I’ve known you since I was five. You jump too many stairs. But you’re  _ good _ . I care about you. I like you”, he says, raw and honest and feeling like he’s the naked one. He feels his eyes prickling treacherously, wills himself not to start crying.

They stay like that. For a minute or a year or one of those unending seconds when your nose is itching but you are carrying stuff and can’t scratch it.

Stiles looks at Derek, and Derek looks back. He scrutinizes Stiles, every piece of him, shivering in the almost dawn. Then he opens his mouth to speak and the most unbelievable thing comes out of it.

“Everything I touch turns to dust”, Derek says.

Seriously, he says that. Stiles changed his mind. He doesn’t like that fucker at all.

“Oh my god you- melodramatic  _ bitch _ , I’m gonna-”, Stiles yells at him.

Stiles takes a step forward, closes the distance between their bodies almost all the way. He grabs both of Derek’s wrists, squeezes them in his hands. 

::

Stiles is so close, Derek can feel his breath on his cheek, the warmth of his tall body. It pulls at something in him, makes him want to- makes him  _ want _ . He stays put, leans his body more heavily against the tree supporting him. 

Stiles takes Derek’s wrists, Derek lets him. He’s running out of arguments against it. Against this. Stiles looks him right in the eye. From this close, even in the dark, Derek can make out the specks of gold in them. Stiles squeezes his wrists. He feels warmth flood through him and spread across his chest. Images flash in quick succession behind his eyes. The colors and details are dulled but they’re tinted with fondness. 

It’s him, all of them. Him with his pack, him alone frowning at the TV, him stealing half a pancake from Cora’s plate at breakfast, him chasing a laughing Laura who’s holding a photo album, him landing in a crouch next to a staircase with a self-satisfied smirk. Him looking douchey at the wheel of the Camaro with a leather jacket and sunglasses in the high school parking lot. Him hiding behind his dad on the bleachers of Cora’s very first Lacrosse game. Him yelling at Scott, who’s aggressively rolling his eyes. His hand on a bony, mole-dotted hip. Him, blurry and framed by an almost full moon, blushing and looking down at the forest ground. Him as a surly sixteen year old enveloped in a hug by his sisters and his mom and dad, the Sheriff’ station in the background.

Stiles lets go of his wrists but doesn’t step back. The pictures fade one after the other, but the warmth in his chest stays, burning bright and elated. Derek is speechless.

Stiles clears his throat. “That’s how I feel. About you. That’s how I see you.” He gives Derek a searching look, but then his bravado seems to run out. He looks down, cheeks coloring.

Derek swallows against the hurricane of feelings warring in his gut and his chest and his brain. He tries to find his voice, to say something, anything.

“Did you just- Bella Swan me?”, he finally asks, voice weak. 

Well. He didn’t expect that to be the first thing out of his mouth. Maybe they  _ are _ made for each other, after all.

Stiles’ eyes snap back up to his, big and surprised. “Fuck”, he almost whispers, “maybe I did.”

Derek resists the urge to smirk at him. He takes his time to look at the brave, opinionated, bone-headed, incredibly annoying person standing in front of him. A sliver of white gold filters through the trees, illuminates the side of Stiles’ face. Dawn found them here after all. 

Derek nods. “Okay.”

Stiles’ eyes grow three sizes wider still as he appraises Derek. “Okay?” he repeats, disbelieving and hopeful.

Derek can’t contain it. A corner of his mouth pulls up as his eyes jump from mole to mole on Stiles’ cheeks. “Okay.”

Stiles beams at him, rocks forward into Derek’s chest, still not quite touching him. It drives Derek  _ crazy _ . He doesn’t do a thing to stop it. Stiles looks down, then up again through his lashes. Derek’s 80% sure he practiced that move with Cora.

“So”, he says in a low, almost suggestive voice. “Does that mean we-”

Derek shakes his head, grabs onto Stiles’ wrist to keep him in place. He doesn’t want this to end.

“Stiles, I-”, he starts, can’t find the words, tries again, “we can’t-”

Stiles rolls his eyes at him. Up close like this, it’s a sight to behold. Derek is deadly offended. And a little turned on.

“I know we can’t  _ right now _ , dude”, Stiles says. “You just- with the-” Stiles gesticulates to indicate the train wreck that is Derek’s life at the moment. Derek swallows. “I’m not a  _ total _ moron.”

Stiles looks down at the ground between them. There’s not much space there, between their bodies. Derek is suddenly, inexplicably very aware that he’s half naked. 

“But, like, maybe… we could go slow?” Stiles asks, not looking up. “Just like, get to know each other?”

Derek hasn’t let go of Stiles’ wrist. He squeezes, wishing he was magic too, that he could show Stiles what he can’t express yet. Stiles looks up at him, surprised. Derek locks eyes with him.

“I know you”, he says, trying to pack as much meaning as he can into these words.

Warm splashes of color bloom on Stiles’ cheek. It would take Derek a tiny inch of movement to learn forward and lick them.

“Of course you do, big guy”, Stiles says in a gritty, low voice Derek doesn’t know, but is looking forward to hearing more frequently. “But, you know what I mean.”

Derek does. “I do.”

Stiles smiles at him, a tiny, private, intimate thing. “Okay.” Derek’s heart pounds in his ears.

Stiles leans forward slowly, his right hand coming up to rest on Derek’s chest for balance. He pecks him chastely on the lips.  For a second, the warmth in his chest turns into a raging fire. Derek gasps against it. 

Then Stiles is stepping back and smiling at him and Derek’s breath leaves him in a whoosh. Fuck.


	13. we're so starving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it, folks! I hope you had fun reading this self-indulgent piece of weird fiction.
> 
> thank you so much for all the kind words you had for it. <3 <3 <3

Derek and Stiles decide it’s best if they go slow. Not even slow, really. Glacial. Let everything settle down, deal with their own shit, take the time to find their way to each other. Do things right. Yes. Be mature about this.

So of course two weeks later they’re in the backseat of the Jeep, windows fogged up, Stiles straddling a shirtless Derek, making out like hormonal teenagers. In their defense, one of them actually is a hormonal teenager. 

Stiles is pawing at Derek’s chest, trailing his fingers through coarse hair as Derek bites the tendons in his neck. They’re rutting against each other, the friction of their jeans almost painful between them. Stiles arches his back, tilts his head, giving more access to Derek. He lets his fingers find a nipple, twist. He’s rewarded with a sharp nip on his collarbone. Derek’s hands squeeze his hips, travel to his ass,  _ knead _ -

A loud thud makes Stiles jump and bang his head on the roof of the Jeep. That’s going to bruise. Derek hasn’t lifted his head from Stiles’ neck, but he’s bringing a hand up to his skull and soothing the pain away, which makes Stiles melt into his chest. A second thud rocks the car. Stiles turns around in Derek’s arms.

Through the windshield he sees Cora crouched on the hood of the Jeep, squinting at them with a grimace of disgust. She’s literally standing on his baby and she has the gall to look pissed off.

“Roscoe, baby!” Stiles shrieks, launching himself out of the car, still half naked.

As he’s patting the hood of the Jeep to make sure Cora hasn’t made any dent or scratched the paint or something, he hears Derek sigh and get out of the car at a much more leisurely pace. A second later, a hoodie is placed on his shoulders by wide, warm hands. He shrugs it on, glares at Cora. She’s staring Derek down, arms crossed, still fucking standing on the car. Ugh, animals.

“Cora!” Stiles yells, trying to catch her attention. “Could you, you know,  _ please _ not walk on my car?”

But noooooo, she’s locked in a glaring match with her idiot brother who also happens to be Stiles’ idiot boyfriend. 

He lunges across the hood, catches one of Cora’s ankles, and yanks. Cora doesn’t budge an inch. He hates her. She does crouch to his level and gets right in his face, poking at the tender spots Derek left on his neck. She looks up over Stiles’ head at Derek.

“Dude,  _ gross _ . Don’t touch my stuff”, Cora says.

“I am not your stuff”, Stiles growls, trying in vain to swat her hands away from his neck and face.

She frowns down at him like he’s an annoying pet she has to scold. “Shut it, Stilinski. As long as I crush you at Lacrosse, I own your ass.”

Stiles heaves a big sigh, lets his body slump back into the solid mass behind him. He looks up at Derek with imploring eyes. Derek lifts an eyebrow silently.

Almost too fast for Stiles’ eyes to catch, he swipes at Cora. She dodges it but loses her balance and falls on her ass next to the Jeep. Lightning quick, Stiles whips out his phone from his back pocket and snaps a shot of her looking surprised and pissed off.

Ignoring a truly enraged Cora stomping back toward the house (they’ll pay for this later, so they might as well enjoy the time they have left to be alive), Stiles turns toward Derek. He looks up at his stupid, smug, perfect face and links their fingers together.  

As it always does since that very first time, warmth spreads from their linked hands through their arms toward their chests as they smile goofily at each other. Stiles doesn’t even know how he does it, really. It’s like his magic seeks out the connection with Derek, blooms through it. He’d ask Deaton about it but it’s not worth the murder urges.

He’s happy, whatever. He turns back and starts walking toward the Hale house, dragging Derek with him. In hindsight, maybe they shouldn't make out in the front yard of the house if they don’t want to be disturbed.

He voices that opinion out loud. “Maybe next time we should pick a better hideout place if we want privacy from your sister and generally overbearing family”, Stiles says airily. He looks back at Derek, who has surly face on. Uh oh.

“My sister?” he points at his chest, then at Stiles’. “Your best friend. Besides, they should respect our privacy, regardless”, Derek grumps away as they get to the front porch. 

Stiles hops on the first step and turns around, arms coming up around Derek’s neck. Derek’s hand settle easily on his hips as he brings their bodies together, soothed.

Stiles studies Derek’s face in the shade of the trees framing the Hale house. He looks like he belongs here, framed by the tall trees of the Preserve, in the circle of Stiles’ arms. He nods, conceding Derek’s point. 

“It’s like that bullshit emo song says: haven’t you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?”

Derek, who’s been staring at Stiles’ lips with a dazed look on his face, leans down and pecks Stiles on the nose. A chorus of groans erupts from all parts of the Hale house. If Stiles really listens, he can even hear Cora yelling “I hate you!” from her third-floor bedroom. Ah,  _ bliss _ .

 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr : innermanboobs for the fandom / shitfckhead for the writing


End file.
